Released
1998
Label
Iris Light
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Contact
Iris Light
55 Hawkens Way St.
Columb Major
Cornwall, TR9 6SS
UK
Visit
Last Edit/Update
02 juli, 1998
Blue
NIGHT WORK
Track Listing
1. Remain
2. Brand-X
3. The Void
4. Informal Break
5. Serration
6. Cold
7. Corridor
8. Chi
9. Renounce Rendition
10. H20
11. Pistol
12. Song Of Joy
13. A Modern Memory
Blue's third album Nightwork should have a long line of
film directors knocking on the British duo's doors. The CD presents sixty minutes of lush,
textured electronic soundtracks that move across the entire known musical spectrum with
mercurial grace. Ambient atmospheres and melodies of symphonic proportions and
sophistication travel side by side with harsh electro percussions and grooved-out break
beats in Blue's complex and ever mutating compositions. Theirs is a
highly visual and evocative brand of music; constantly inviting the listener to wander
into that secret place, where all memories and imaginings reside.
The opening track
"Remain" contains the entire album in miniature. Beginning with an overture of
slow, subtle, string harmonies, the piece builds to a crescendo of soaring, melodic synth
themes and dynamic, crashing percussions. Having described the entire dramatic curve of an
epic film spectacle on its flight, all that remains at the end is an aftermath of sonic
back-wash. But this is not the end -- only the very beginning; another twelve tracks of
equal musical versatility and intensity remain.
"Brand-X" follows; the
first of a series of brief sound vignettes that are interspersed between some of the
longer tracks on the album. Emerging out of the tail of "Remain," and diving
straight into "The Void," "Brand-X" is a short segment of gyrating
electronics, tightly woven around the utterings of a voice that has become all but
completely obscured in the process. "The Void" opens with spitting synths; waves
of sampled chorals slowly fade in, setting the stage for the unpredictably skipping
rhythms that wander trough the rest of the piece amidst a true whirlwind of other aural
information. Towards the end, sheets of beautiful thematics descend upon "The
Void," leading into another short 'vignette,' appropriately entitled "Informal
Break."
Melancholy soughs, recalling a
misty morning on the docks, introduce "Serration." Soon, rolling, vagabondish
beats kick in, supported by a hovering, sawing synth presence, and spurts of electric
pulses. The expansive melodics that are such an integral part of Blue's
sound on this album are also present here, and are given full prominence in an interlude
half way through the piece. The short "Cold" returns to the mood and visual
landscape of "Serration"'s opening. An icy aural wind blows past the listener's
face, as he is taken down a nocturnal river on the deep, subdued pulses of Blue's
musical steamboat.
"Corridor" is dominated
by a stomping beat with rattling after effects, and spurts of tinny, tribal percussions
popping in and out. Slow, coursing harmonies also sail through the piece, but with
"Corridor" Blue above all else aim for the dancefloor.
The exploration of images through
sound continues on "Chi." Shimmering synths, clear tinkling rhythms, and layers
of themes evoking an atmosphere of wonder and mild melancholy, comprise the fabric of this
slow walk through an urban oriental setting. A more foreboding mood prevails over the
opening segment of "Renounce Rendition," but otherwise this track carries over
the exotic qualities of "Chi." The constant shifts from powerful, bassy
percussion sequences, to moments of dripping electric tones, to passages guided by great
melodic sweep, renders any verbal 'rendition' largely impossible -- here is pure music.
True to its title, "H2O"
features nice gurgling beats, and a swaying theme. Waves of sonic debris wash over the
piece, and inverted sound effects skip across the thematic surfaces, like so many sunbeams
twinkling on the face of the ocean. "Pistol" consists of a number of string
themes weaving subtlely in and out amongst each other, seemingly engaged in a game of hide
and seek. An uncertain tension gradually builds up to the very end, when suddenly the
piece erupts into a brief sequence of powerful percussions. As Alfred Hitchcock
once said: "If you show a gun, you must use it..."
Composed almost entirely of choral
voices, manipulated and layered into a brief moment of celestial beauty, "Song Of
Joy" spreads a cathartic sense of joy before the final track of the album. "A
Modern Memory" closes Nightwork on an appropriate note -- slow symphonic
themes swirl around a minimal progression of chimy notes, ending in a subdued static hiss,
not unlike the humming silence after the end credits of a movie.
Nightwork is the third album
by Blue, and the first to be released on the eclectic English label Iris
Light. As should be apparent from the above, this is a great work of synthetica;
whether one prefers to experience music from the center of the dancefloor, or snug in an
armchair with the eyes closed, this CD is one that should not be passed up.
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