Just got this great new tape from Justin Wright's Sonic Meditations imprint by Belgium's J.D. Emmanuel. You probably remember a few years back when one of Lieven Martens's labels reissued Emmanuel's Wizards LP which has probably influenced everyone whose worked in the recent synthesizer nu-age.
I was just a touch apprehensive that this was a concert recording, recorded in a Texas park no less, only because I worried about the sound quality. However, this thing must have been recorded direct because it sounds fantastic, as if Emmanuel had recorded it at home or in a studio. You get the live feel, the cassette consists of 4 improvised pieces, but there's no lo-fi barriers in between you and the sounds. Just like sonic meditations such as these should be.
Not only does the tape sound good, this is some top shelf material. I personally prefer this tape to Wizards, which had great stuff on it no doubt. Peaceful Kingdom Concert 1982, also apparently titled Trance-Lation Into Space, has a hypnotic energy about it that is impossible to ignore. You feel buoyant and submerged at the same time, just drifting through water or space or time. Emmanuel's synthetic textures and twirling yarns mold such an immersive atmosphere, it's easy to get lost in it. As the cover art brings to mind, the effect isn't too dissimilar from those dreamy poppies in The Wizard of Oz.
I probably don't have anything particularly insightful to say about this other than it's damn good and well worth tracking down for anyone who loves to indulge in analog hypnosis.
For the gearheads: Emmanuel used a Yamaha SK-20, 3 Sequential Circuits Pro-Ones and a DeltaLab DL-2 Digital Delay on this recording.
I was just a touch apprehensive that this was a concert recording, recorded in a Texas park no less, only because I worried about the sound quality. However, this thing must have been recorded direct because it sounds fantastic, as if Emmanuel had recorded it at home or in a studio. You get the live feel, the cassette consists of 4 improvised pieces, but there's no lo-fi barriers in between you and the sounds. Just like sonic meditations such as these should be.
Not only does the tape sound good, this is some top shelf material. I personally prefer this tape to Wizards, which had great stuff on it no doubt. Peaceful Kingdom Concert 1982, also apparently titled Trance-Lation Into Space, has a hypnotic energy about it that is impossible to ignore. You feel buoyant and submerged at the same time, just drifting through water or space or time. Emmanuel's synthetic textures and twirling yarns mold such an immersive atmosphere, it's easy to get lost in it. As the cover art brings to mind, the effect isn't too dissimilar from those dreamy poppies in The Wizard of Oz.
I probably don't have anything particularly insightful to say about this other than it's damn good and well worth tracking down for anyone who loves to indulge in analog hypnosis.
For the gearheads: Emmanuel used a Yamaha SK-20, 3 Sequential Circuits Pro-Ones and a DeltaLab DL-2 Digital Delay on this recording.
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