Different Places In SPACE – Dark River, Orange Sun
It’s been a while since I heard anyone use the guitar for anything else other than showing off or providing a comfy background for the vocals. Different Places In SPACE, the ambitiously titled American project, adopts the sounds in the way that singers might suggest bringing in another keyboardist to clean up the sound. The guitar works as a provider of sound effects, rather than sonic noodling. You’re meant, I’d imagine, to close your eyes, and imagine yourself floating down that river mentioned in the song title.
The vocals are part of the classic-rock handbook. They remind me of Eric Burdon, one of rock’s first bonafide frontmen worth paying the admission price based on stage presence alone. Meanwhile, the rhythm section is polite yet competent. The guitars continue to push that wah pedal to its breaking point throughout.
Dark River, Orange Sun is psychedelic music of the “close your eyes and dream yourself away” variety.
Fleur bleu.e – Horizon
Generalizing is never a good idea. Still, throughout pop-music’s complicated history, French representatives have, for the most part, opted to do things a bit differently. I know that there are plenty of standard guitar bands, dance acts and MCs hailing from France as well. Overall, musicians have injected their compositions with the kind of elegance and sophistication that have made their North American and other European counterparts take notice.
The psych-rock affair of Horizon shares some of those characteristics, yet does not exactly contain the open or closed settings of most pop music. The intro is a strange space-rock excursion that includes interesting guitar arpeggios, strange sound effects and military drumming. The rest of the song contains the classic chanteuse-like style of singing over a musical backdrop that seems to be disintegrating slowly.
Finally, a piano solo occupies the final minutes of the song. It plays out slowly, with little concern to pop songwriting’s time constraints over the distinct sound of crashing waves.
