NODE

Dario Argento meet Jean-Michel Jarre. a.k.a Zanov is having a bad hair day

John Carpenter released an epic electronic album of late that I'm looking forward to reviewing soon. Until such time, I'm reviewing another favorite (and under the radar) release by equally dark and deliciously ambient Node. I could spew historical facts about the band bio, but I'm feeling lazy and PA has already done a great and far better job of that. Do give it a once over if you're so inclined. It's a great bio, however, and the band members are rife with synth experience galore. If you like swimming in the wide ocean of synth under the star-laden vastness of space then grab your flippers and floaties and start what could possibly be the best day of your next life.

Node (great name) provides us with creepy ambient textures, pulsating fuzz, stratospheric swelling, whimsical tone drops, analogue artifacts, retro sequenced pads, all magical and entrancing. Sometimes electronic music can drone on too long -- this does not happen here. The textures and moods change more frequent allowing the listener to constantly evolve with the music. At the end of my first listen I questioned for 3 days whether I still existed, or if I transcended my physical form and merged with the dark matter of the universe. It wasn't until I tried walking through a wall that I realized I it was time to listen to some Danger Danger and enjoy the sunny life I actually still existed in.

Until that point, however, I took my journey: three months straight I enjoyed falling asleep to the sound scapes of these 5 songs, and I have absolutely no way to prove this, but I still do believe this is the form of communication with the inhabitants of Fomalhaut, the triple star system in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. (as yet to be confirmed by NASA.) After all, If there ever were aliens among us, then it definitely would explain this genre and it's rightful place here among the progressive listeners of PA.

Strap in, zone out and head to the other side of the black hole.

Wishful concert pairing: John Carpenter or Herbert F. Bairy

Another brick in the P/E wall.

It is a real paradox in the P.A.'s Prog/Electronic world. To be inducted you must show Berlin School credentials or West Coast ones, the American translation of the European one. Musical languages which themselves diversified into a zillion rivers, more than once, completely transfigured from their primal roots. To cut it short, if you sound like someone from those recognized early 70's to the late 90's you are inducted.

As I clearly mentioned in my TANGERINE DREAM "RUBYCON", 1975, I am one of those children who was raised and spoiled rotten by that Electronic music masterpiece. Add to that, that I have never been nor pretend to be the kind of guy who enjoys listening to someone who sounds like someone else, case dismissed!

So as you, may not know, everytime I see the benovolence of someone associating any Electronic act to Progressive Electronic's Gods, be it T.D. or Klauz Schulze, it , instead of a welcome, is understood as a farwell!

NODE's musical idiom is far from being unique, they sure offer a clean cut rendition of T.D.'s self acquired and self-discovered Progressive Electronic language, but as I have stated, it is no big thrill for me to listen to someone who sounds like someone else. Composition over performance, that is my drug!

Benevolent ***3 PA stars