Total time: 73:15
Recorded: 2006
Published: 2015
REVIEWS
“I know that I already wrote it but the more we move forward in this fascinating series the more the pleasure to rediscover the music of INDRA becomes contagious.”
The years 2005 and 2006 announce a change in the musical orientation of INDRA. A change just like his biggest source of inspiration, Klaus Schulze, which is beneficial to the career and to the vision of the one who was going to undertake a real ‘tour de force’ with the Tantric Celebration series which began with the Kali album in 2006. Always supported by minimalist parades, the ambient rhythms were going to become rhythms of Trance which are flooded of delicious stroboscopic serpentines.
Bluntly and without introduction of ambience, ‘Resolution’ seizes our feet with a lively rhythm shaken by a thousand spasms. A huge skeleton of sequences frays its keys which skip as a multitude of learned fleas which hold their legs and arms and shake them in unison. Very beautiful electronic effects, one would say carillons in a submarine hatch, bicker over these cabrioles, entailing this first title of Emerald Four towards a more esoteric phase while the rhythm becomes more quiet by waving like a flame with a good line of bass. Effects of voices and cosmos are bathing ‘Resolution’ which leans then more on a structure of morphic techno with strong resonant pulsations and the jingles of a snare drum. A first serpentine of hyper sequences line is escaping at the 5th minute point, redirecting the initial rhythm towards a wilder phase before joining another one more in the kind of dance. Always very ornamental, the effects, here it’s the percussion which resound like being stuffed of gas, and the voices attract the fiery rhythm of ‘Resolution’ towards a last phase more astral and more morphic. This is some solid INDRA who whips our ears and who makes me always unbelieving in front of this surprising collection where the useless remainders are always very rare.
‘Roots’ proposes a more ambient intro with disordered pulsations which sparkle in cosmic effects. We hear lines there which take shape and disappear as the rhythm holds its presence with thin lines of sequences which spin like spirals in darkness. Decorated with other elements of rhythm (pulsations, small lost steps, percussion and organic sequences) ‘Roots’ goes up and down like a carousel of rhythm with its ornamental effects in a long labyrinth of minimalist structures.
Hypnotic and magnetic, ‘Jolly Joker’ is just like the ambient and progressive rhythms which were these first elements of charms that we found on albums such as Echo in Times, Signs and The Call of Shiva. Two lines of sequences with harmonies as esoteric than rhythmic are crossing their sonic attractions in a beautiful movement of motionless and minimalist rhythm which is of use as basis to stroboscopic movements and to pulsations which breathe such as the suction of an octopus. Of short duration, the evolution is contagious and our neurons want more.
But the introduction of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ decides on it otherwise with a beautiful ambiospherical phase which fades out in a thick cloud of felted percussion and their effects of echo which feed a very beautiful and unexpected phase of ambient rhythm. This is a great track and it’s the thunder after the calm! It is also a thing which makes quite a whole effect and which filled a room of listening of a percussive envelope rather impressive.
With its 30 minutes, ‘All That is Done’ takes all its time in order to develop well and settle down between our ears in wait. Hollow breezes welcome a delicate movement of sequences which makes its keys skip in a harmonious context. The sequences cavort in fact, dancing with their reflections which glitter of a crystalline tone. Ambient, the structure of rhythm twitters like the flight of a hummingbird admiring its beauty in the reflection of a spotless window. Synth layers throw a celestial veil while the movement, always stationary, blows a shroud of peace of mind. On 30 minutes, the ambient rhythm puts down its nuances which are of subtlety and leaves its place to the effects of voice which give a more sibylline approach as the minutes pass by. Little by little, ‘All That is Done’ is dragged in an ambiosonic phase closer to the cosmos than of the spirituality before resuming its delicate harmonious spasms which lead us to a finale where the cosmos is embraced by a deliciously ambient and ethereal approach.
What more can we say that the charms of INDRA always operate and still, even in sonic envelopes which breathe the big phases of his most creative period. Emerald Four is the first album of this series which presents no fault, a little as if it was an authentic album which was ignored by magazines and critics. There is some very good material in there and I know that I repeat myself, but the more we move forward in this fascinating series the more the pleasure to rediscover the music of INDRA becomes contagious.
Sylvain Lupari (October 10th, 2016)