RHIZOSPHÈRE

Unlike his concurrent 'Heldon' band - there are no guitars used at all. This is purely electronic with a complete absence of vocals. 'Rhizosphere' displays all the technology and gadget twisting of 'Jean Michel Jarre' from the previous year with his groundbreaking 'Oxygene'. Thankfully it's mostly a lot darker in execution.

'A Piece for Duncan' verges on New Age Ambience in the style of Steve Hillages 'Rainbow Dome Musick'. Squeaks and bloops playfully doodle around the surface as a simple pretty echoing keyboard patters out a relaxing little tune.

Quite frankly, this whole album is far more listenable and pleasing than 'Heldon' to my weak and feeble ears that have been damaged beyond belief during the past 25 years of listening to 'difficult' music. As you can see it also displays a bizarre and wonderful front sleeve. It's meaningless, of course, but represents a surrealistic approach to the recording.

Swirling keyboards make up 'Claire P.' with a hypnotic and kaleidoscopic feel throughout. This is quickly followed by 'Trapeze Interference'. Being much darker and quite sinister, it's actually similar to early 80's Industrialists 'Konstruktivists' with its wind-tunnel, doom laden chords.

The 18 minute 'Rhizosphere' is a large slab of electronica played with a huge amount of heavily treated percussion, where every sound is squashed through electronic effects. Mostly 'flanger'. It is however, just a greatly expanded version of the excellent introductory track. It's all very 'Klaus Schulze' circa 1976. On a negative note, it gets too repetitive over it's lengthy duration with too few changes in direction to hold the listeners attention. The gradual but dramatic change in tempo is the only thing that warrants such a long track. Unfortunately it drags things down a bit.

At just 39 minutes running time some may feel a bit cheated out of their hard earned pobblebeads in purchasing such an album.

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