SERGE RAMSES

Sailing ships over a lost ocean.

Serge Ramses, 1978,"Secret", as fellow PA reviewer "Progfan97402" scrutinously mentions, has a lot of ties with his contemporary Zanov. I of course will inevitably mention that it also feds, as a lot of that region's P/E musicians from the outcasteded from this electronic world according to PA's criteria the underdog of an alternate kind of electronic idiom Jean MIchell Jarre. That established lets roll on with the review.

The good news is that it does not plagiarizes nobody's musical language and in turn delivers great electronic song writing (instrumental of course). It is rich in proposals and amazingly, although the music holds some kind of cinematic "grandeur", in some sense, the whole project is meticously unpretentious or let me say "kept in size".

At the end of the day musical composition comes first and this release has plenty to offer in that regard and for good, for the progressive electronic world.

Do not keep the secret, pass it on!

****4 PA stars.

Great and obscure electronic music by this French musician. The music is undeniably progressive electronic, influenced by the Berlin School, but more emphasizes the calm-end of it, so what you won't get is a lot of sequencer action. Think the more calm, sedate moments of Klaus Schulze, and you're not too far off. The music never slips in to New Age dreck, which is a plus, the music is too ominous sounding to fall into that New Age trap. S. Ramses uses lots of early polyphonic synths (perhaps a PolyMoog or maybe some Korgs), although the cover artwork depicts him with modular synths, or perhaps a Korg PS-3300 that Zanov was using around the same time. Mellotron also has its presence shown on "Deuce", "Aoss" and the side-length title track, the first two featuring what sounds like the less common tron oboes, and the title track featuring the much more familiar tron strings. Mellotron is never dominate on this album, but it's nice to hear. I find it amusing that rumor had abound that Serge Ramses was Zanov, even though that wasn't true. Certainly S. Ramses was influenced by that same school of electronic music as Zanov, but it's easy to tell it's not Zanov, not to mention Zanov never used a Mellotron. It's true both befriended each other when both were living in London. True than Alain Gross produced their albums. Both recording for major labels, and quickly became obscurities. There are tons of great progressive electronic albums that are waiting to be discovered. This is one of them. Unfortunately it's never been reissued, making the purchase of the LP the only way to hear it on solid format (luckily prices hadn't shot through the roof the way of Italian prog). So hold on your turntables, this is a nice album to have for those who enjoy the Berlin School of electronic music.