I hope nobody will get
disappointed when finds out that this release is not one of the latest. What
you are going
to read below is half story, or rather, history and half an album
review. I am sure you get to listen to a ton of music, but not sure if you ever
heard the works of Archon Orchestra. Below is their story, which can be a
research topic of its own.
Archon Orchestra has
started in Moscow with the experimental project, Cyclotimia. The first album
that I ever heard was a monumental space work, called
Celestis: Space Ceremonial Music, followed by Music for Stockmarkets. These two albums are the remaining blocks to complete any music collection.
Celestis: Space Ceremonial Music, followed by Music for Stockmarkets. These two albums are the remaining blocks to complete any music collection.
One of the participants
of Cyclotimia, Max Khachmanukyan started his own project in 2009, called
Sphere Rex and recorded a very beautiful and touching piano album, For Electronics and Piano, his view on minimalism and ambient music. Max had so
many good ideas that he created another project, known as Archon Orchestra,
moving in a different direction of music.
Debut album of Archon Orchestra was Pong, where Max used real space organ to produce mechanic
sequences and creating sound landscape of your inner space. Take for example,
Orpheus, Golconda tracks, which project you a long distance away from this
planet. They have quite a surprising effect, considering that the ideas behind
the music and sounds are pretty basic.
The second album of
Archon Orchestra is called Cenotaph. This record has quite a sad tone and I
keep thinking that this is the musician reminiscing the golden age of the
Renaissance. The record is very unique, being artistic and electronic at the
same time, with the sounds of medieval organ and translucent sounds of piano.
The artwork of the album is the work of the German-American artist Lyonel Feininger - Market Church In Halle, who was influenced by analytical cubism and
Italian futurism.
The album starts with a
piercing play Lento, turning into Hope and Calm, with hissy electronic drums.
After all, electronic music is just a modern way of sharing the information
between the artist and its listeners. The content
of modern soundscapes is
similar to the content of couple-of-century-old canvases: artists fix the
moments of their enlightenment in their works. The play, Eluding I, has way
more of content than any story can tell. In between the notes is an evolving
ambient plain with distressed sounds of strings, followed by Les Dirigeables,
and then by Eluding II, with their weightless and incredibly crafty melodies
turning you to the state of levitation. Cenotaph, the main chapter of the album
and is a symbolic monument: it erases the definition of time does and
introduces you to the eternity. Time is the last page of the album, one of my
favorite tracks, it is the soundtrack to the real life, which is quite a
different story to the rest of the album.
Buy:
Author: Andrei Vasilevsky