THROUGH SHADED WOODS

LUNATIC SOUL, side-project of the singer-bassist from Riverside has been exploring soft, soaring tones with synths backing since 2008; this 7th album transports us to a Scandinavian or Irish folk universe come to lend a hand; no electro here rough which he plays alone, looking to the past-future; an intimate, cold, icy music where tribal sounds finally release a little warmth, feelings and intrusive images able to make you travel alone through the use of own eidolias. "Navvie" with Irish folk sounds and accordion, bass, Mariusz's voice linear, haunting, basic, bewitching, acoustic atmo, appetizer. "The Passage" for a repetitive acoustic track, a monophasic suite that sets in motion halfway, a metallic riff that becomes embedded, we suddenly find ourselves at a banquet (more than 6 and more!) Where the 'we dance drunk on a weathered tree that serves as a table, a title not to be underestimated. "Through Shaded Woods" for the progressive Rajna-style vibe with binary sounds and that tortured voice, reverberating jarring distortion that makes you shiver, a sound of old times with traditional instruments; the voice is recovering with a normal stroke, ending with rustling of footsteps in the leaves. "Oblivion" with Dead Can Dance hovering here! Ritual drum, orchestra, troubadour rhyme that is nothing sensational except for this bucolic air and this enchanting voice of Mariusz. "Summoning Dance" which immediately reminds me of the sound of Anathema in their scintillating acoustic tunes; dream, purity, joy, crescendo with the contribution of the piano, acoustic guitars, electric bass and synths filling the fresh air of the undergrowth, everything to make bare feet dance in trance on the humus from the forest. "The Fountain" ending melody that could appear on a Riverside album, sad song about returning hope, crystal-clear piano, twilight orchestration and the astonishing beauty that goes with it, there we touch on the introspective ambient. 40 minutes that make you want to grab the luxury version with 3 bonuses, let's go: "Vyraj" for an instrumental title, folk trance, binary, stereotypical, bewitching taking up this hypnotic guitar frame; the voice is only whispered here, the synth in the background. "Hylophobia" on the shortest track and a dynamic riff well in the style of Riverside, you have to wait for the middle to return to these sounds from the cold. "Transition II" for the track you have to listen to; a trip here on Riverside, dub, on Mike Oldfield with that lush xylophone stint; then metallic percussions, an extension of "He Av En" from the previous album, intertwined sections which mix to merge and give by musical alchemy an incredible piece; further on, an atmosphere of an S-F movie soundtrack, you might think you could hear Tangerine Dream or Max Richter, it's beautiful to the baby's cry of wonder; 37 minutes more for a double chronicle of fact.

Primitive, ritual dances, composed in his childhood home invaded by forests, this album is a trap with these single-string and monophasic atmospheres which are loaded with reverberations; Safe from his ancestral torments Mariusz was able to deliver basic, archaic, Celtic, ambient music where melancholy torpor creates a musical oxymoron on fire and shadow, life and death, a memory on the moving film "L 'Isle ". a reminder of the sounds of Dead Can Dance and Peter Gabriel or even Heilung or Clannad in which Enya worked there for a while. Mariusz loves monotonous rhythmic repetitive sounds and shows it by transcending them, giving them an afterlife.