AN ENIGMATIC WAVE OF EMPATHY

Marc Ceccotti continued to fill the gap between the Edhels' albums with another effort based on his own musical background.So, in 2001 he launched ''An enigmatic wave of empathy'', recorded, as always, at the Simon Studio without any external help.The beautiful cover comes from the painiting ''Le centre de la terre'' of Philippe Breton.

While I can't say I am really fond of Ceccotti's solo works, this album is a sincere effort on instrumental Experimental Rock, which still struggles from the mass of ambiental and minimalistic soundscapes, but contains some moments of decent inspiration as well.Now, the style of Ceccotti appears to be a bit more expanded, which may sound like a good thing on paper, but realistically works for the other side of things.''An enigmatic wave of empathy'' is a world, where New Wave, guitar-led Fusion, Ambient, Industrial and Minimalistic Music collide.The only handled instruments apparently are the guitars and the piano, all other sounds coming from keyboard or computer programming.Even more apparently the pieces with the more guitar-driven style are the most interesting ones, Ceccotti has always been a crafty guitarist and his love for KING CRIMSON and Fusion offers often some pretty solid material with jazzy and even melodic moves in a downtempo mood.Honestly, the robotic drumming and the fake keyboard sounds are the not the proper choices for an album.They still hurt the efficiency and potential of any good ideas plus this one is too long not to become really annoying in the end.If you ever come across this work please focus on Ceccotti's guitar manifest, which may sound a bit secure as a whole, but offers some cool monents, ranging from decent to splendid.

Minimalistic instrumental Prog?Yes, why not, containing echoes from the works of EDHELS, KING CRIMSON and even PETER GABRIEL.Too atmospheric for my taste and suffering from a serious presence of physical instruments.The guitar work of Ceccotti is propably the only reason to purchase the album...2.5 stars.