A friend of mine has recently fulfilled a time (and money) consuming ambition of setting up what he believes is the ultimate home audio system. When I visited him recently he was keen to show this off and to put the gleaming components through their paces. I suggested he put on Peter Gabriel's Passion. The sheer diversity of sounds on this album, together with the precise production made it an ideal choice. I was suitably impressed.
If I was looking for a more contemporary artist to test his system then the Dutch band Geomatic might be a contender. This is the group's third album and first on Tympanik Audio label. Most of the 11 tracks are on or around the 6 minute mark.
On this album, as with Gabriel's magnum opus, there is a mix of ancient mysticism and modernism , of traditional voices with state of the art techno, albeit without the extraordinary range of sources to be heard on Passion.
For 64 Light Years Away is a crisp blend of exotic rhythms and dark ambience with driving trance grooves. Middle-Eastern voices merge with space communications or Dalek-like speech. One could almost say it takes Gabriel's blueprint and translates it into a Sci-Fi soundtrack, a kind of Passion re-imagined for alien life forms.
But alarm bells begin to sound when you see that no names are given on the band's official website and ultimately the music Geomatic make is equally anonymous. So it will show off the qualities of your hi-fi system but don't expect it to touch you soul.
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The busy psybient grooves of the opening track (Nano Anu) shows the project at its best whilst also exposing the weaknesses of the group sound. This track is busy and impressively crafted piece yet at the same time is just a little too dispassionate and precise for its own good.
Other lavish tunes such as Shesqi and White Hole,Dark Soul reverberate with echoing effects, as if they were conceived in a vast hi-tech underground studio.
With an immoderate use of adjectives, the record label describe the Geomatic sound as "a slow-burn beat-driven and atmospheric display of futuristic complexity and epic sound architectures".
Ultimately, the music here seems as overblown as this summary.
Geomatic artist info on Tympanik website
Geomatic website
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