Strange musical combination that this one of Synth NL and Remy. Although both Dutch musicians share an interest for the music of Jean Michel Jarre, they are the exact opposite of their musical visions as much for the genre that of the writings. It's at the 2007 E-Live Festival that Remy Stroomer, who has a study of classic musician, and Michel van Osenbruggen, a self-taught who is inspired by Vangelis, have made acquaintance. In the course of the meetings and conversations during following festivals and events of EM, they developed a friendship as well as some interest in composing an album together. And so “PrimiTiveS” was shyly born. According to both authors, the conception was difficult. The distance between the genres and the difference at the level of the writing technique have outstripped at the same time and moved closer to two new accomplices who wrote the main lines of “PrimiTiveS” each of their sides. The result is a delicious mix of both styles which propel the EM fan in the spectral and theatrical atmospheres that Remy has concocted along Exhibition of Dreams and the heavy and curt rhythms that made the mark of Synth NL with OceanoGraphy.
And it's this mixture which is at the heart of "Underground Tubes", of which the first minutes offer an intro filled by granular breezes and harmonies which glide with a musical scent in a subdued atmosphere of dusts and studed mists. An intro where the breaths of saxophones sing in cosmic currents before being finely cherished by a bass line and percussions which hop in funky movements embraced by tenderness. And this rhythm, taken to party by howlings of a synth to twisted solos, increases patiently the pace with a vrooming heaviness which pulses in a constant velocity, entailing in its groove a line of sequence which swirls with harmonious jerks and solos of synth to vampiric forms which release also iridescent mists on a rhythm of which the constancy is fed on sequences and on more incisive percussions. If the beginning of "Underground Tubes" is stamped by Remy, the finale is just as much with its dark solos, its orchestral approach and its chthonian choir which adorn the bubbling cosmic approaches which is the mark of Synth NL. And it's this kind of musical duel that “PrimiTiveS” reserves us.

"Traffic Cones" doesn't do in for subtleties with its clearly funky approach and its chords to the sucking sounding pulsations which pound under the imprints of a synth with orchestral mists and of its solos which whisper us a spectral kindness to the hollows of ears. The rhythm is unfolding a more jerky strength with continual stroboscopic comings and goings which awaken in us reminiscences of Klaus Schulze and of his Inter*Face - Miditerranean Pads era. Awesome! "Ancient Pyramids" espouses also this funky model, but with a more honeyed approach, on a bass line with spiraled palpitations and a line of sequences with frenzied jerks which swirl against current in the spherical movements of an electronic melody dreaming in the charms of a synth to incisive solos and Arabian breezes.

After the very ambient phases of "Liquid Spheres", "Fractured Splines" bursts into our ears with a line of sequences with keys which hiccup deeply by spinning into a furious rotatory movement that percussions carry at the tip of their rhetoric strikings in the ochred mists of the synths of which the incisive solos are swirling such as howling spectres. The battle of the somber atmospheres of Remy on the heavy and lively rhythms of Synth NL is more than significant on this track as well as on "Crashing Toroids" among whom the heaviness and the layers of synth as black as morphic are slowing down a little the velocity of its rotatory axis. Again it will please the fans of Klaus Schulze. "Paper Planes" is a superb track which brings us into the night-atmospheres of Remy where the hissing winds, the dark mists and the lascivious solos wrap a slow rhythm of which the crisscrossed volutes of sequences pound with more vigour than a rhythm slows down by the bludgeoning of the percussions which burst with more fury towards the finale.

We stay in these ambiences of Remy Schulze with "Frozen Cubes" and its somber notes of piano which reveal a melody soaked with a mood of black dreams that choirs, mi-seraphic and mi-sinister, wrap with an aura of night-discomfort. A discomfort which amplifies with a heavy final hammered by dramatic percussions, weaving so a rather anguishing conclusion. This is great Remy, theatrical and oniric, which just got into our ears. Take what are the heaviest parts of “PrimiTiveS” and intensify its contents and it gives "Burning Cylinders" which wears marvellously its naming. The rhythm is more than heavy. It's hammered by powerful percussions, of which every blow leaves an echo and its shadow, and fed by nervous riffs which, put together, forge a powerful electronic progressive rock of which the axis of a bass line adopts a rhythmic profile à la Peter Gun. Simply delicious! The synths are wearing the tones and the very different musicality of both authors who multiply twisted and complexes solos, feeding a hallucinating ambience of schizophrenic impulses which swirl in the circle very restricted of this rhythm as alive as black. It's unmistakably one of the very good tracks of 2013.

When two artists at the top of their art are working together to compose an album; the results are sometimes tepid. We often have the impression that each wants to swallow the style of the other. And it's far from being the case on “PrimiTiveS” where we feel a mutual respect regarding the style of each and a growing musical friendship through this work which represents very well the meshing of their visions. It's a very beautiful album where the crossing of Exhibition of Dreams and OceanoGraphy inhales the rhythms and ambiences of Klaus Schulze, with a sweet zest of Jean Michel Jarre. Highly recommendable!

Sylvain Lupari (April 4th, 2013)

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