HIGH TEA

I was happy to find the latest album of Mademoiselle Marquee, whose powerfully psychedelic art had teased my imagination for a long time. The relief to this anticipation was realized with a CD holding open avant-garde sound realms, wrapped within cover booklet presenting the pretty visual artworks of the creator. I liked this personal end result very much, being a complete manifestation of creator's innovation and energies. The album appears like a soundtrack to the subconsciousness of a mind in altered states, musically being a really heavy and intensive trip of constantly evolving and seldom pausing voyage.

"Opium Spades" starts the session with heavily echo treated vocals and piano, tender acid guitars running behind to both natural and reversed directions. Though melodies match harmonically, the focus of the progressions is pleasantly disoriented, creating a sensation of euphoric chaos, boosted by wailings which emphasize the primitive sacred sensation of the aural flow. The reverend statements lead to a causeway weaved by guitar arpeggios, titled as "Salvia". This phase is sounding bit like Ash Ra Tempel due the symmetrical repetitive formations upon quiet synthesizers lingering in the background. Later the echoed singing returns, phasing to "Lilly Lumiere", which grows as richer sea of sounds with much shimmering and vibrating details on the surface. This felt to me as very soothing and mystic surrealistic aural space without clear directions or feeling of progression, still being on constant state of moving. Smoothly some more oppressing elements are introduced, as unclear and aggressive vocal samplings assault the scenery. Denser sound textures and darker motives in the free melodic harmony layers project quite phantasmal illusion state, which later gets quieter, surged to a vortex of tender guitars and vocals, both extremely treated with effect reverbing. "Electric Flower Gardens" is presented as melodically clearer pathway, opening with sequencing sounds reminding Tangerine Dream's mid-1970's sound. Some fuzzy guitars, distant hollow witchcraft voices and clear shining synths are later implemented to the installation. Backwards running reverbs throw in more intense and shorter scene of this mysterious ocean of sounds as "Excess Fix", flowing then to "Optical Astronomy", started by tender guitar picking. As distantly haunting pretty vocals accompany this moment, an eye of a storm is created to the psychic maelstrom. From the calmness a beautiful guitar solo arises with slowly pulsing chords. Some vocal statements announce the ending phases of the longest track on this huge musical entity, and also introduce some faint rhythms, which are a very scarce element on the album. Even these quite fast fade away, keyboard chords return with some kind of winds blowing forth "Interlude", which is a short and chaotic vocal sample passage. Backward recorded drums and hovering synthesizer walls form some "Cremola Foam", where the direction flow of entropy and drums are later turned to more natural direction, which stay behind strong fence of electronics, phasing in and out without any restraints. "The Eclipse Reversal" builds from these echoed walls, strengthened by programmed rhythms and spacey sounds, and the revealing solemn synth and guitar melodies. There is open space reserved for solitary repetitive guitar passage, which returns to spacey theme from the song's beginning, and then sticking to a singular key. From this basis emerges a neat guitar solo, reminding the melodies of classic Pink Floyd sounds. The untitled end brings a moment of silence to the aural flow, and after four minutes melodically beautiful dramatic theme emerges, produced with for synths, piano, and passionate vocals. Vibrating humming and drums enter creating minimalist trance, which suddenly escapes to totally different plane of waving audio elements, which hover around in intensity and are circled by luminous chiming, illuminating these final beautiful themes and vocal tricks.

The low presence of rhythmic section makes this music very ambient, and I like the way how perception of time gets faded in this myriad scenery of shimmering sonic objects. It is also interesting, how well the recording keeps its integrity, considering the vast amount of musical elements being treated quite chaotically, themes appearing and disappearing very unregularly way. Still in my opinion the end resolution is whole, pure, and flowing calmly according the logics of the dreams. Hopefully I will later find somewhere more releases of this most interesting underground artist as soundtrack for the sacred confusion sequences at home.