Blauerosen

If you ever envisaged taking a walk inside an animated version of any of M.C. Escher’s worlds, then ‘Geometrical Keys’ would be an ideal musical accompaniment. This is the dark, mystifying, atmospheric, spiritual, inspiring debut album by Hologram_ aka Martin Delisle. It is an album which heightens our emotions in all the ways that good IDM (or Intelligent Dance Music) is supposed to do, so expect to be motivated to dance, explore your emotions and thoughts and to drift away mentally into imaginary places and times.

The first song of the album, ‘Fall Into The Maze‘ immediately sets our imagination on fire as we hear samples of footsteps heading to an unknown place, together with other haunting sounds. This album creates soundscapes with alternating energies, provides numerous melodical and rhythmical elements which we can choose to combine in almost infinite ways in order to create multiple scenarios for our spiritual wanderings and imagine ourselves to be in places with varied dynamics.

The haunting and absorbing atmosphere that the album creates is a result of a dexterous mix which was carried out by Martin himself. The rhythmical base is different for each song but you can identify dubstep, industrial, noise, minimal electronic and other beats which are combined with vocal samples creating 16 unique and rhythmically very interesting tracks.

A music album which reveals stories just as a book does

As Martin Delisle revealed during a recent interview at Radio Béton, this album intends to work for the listeners as a book. It is divided conceptually in three parts giving the impression that each of them is a chapter of an imaginary book which would contain our explorations while we listen to the music. Structuring the album in this way was a conscious choice which aimed at facilitating our spiritual and emotional wanderings while listening to the songs. The tracks ‘First Piece of the Puzzle’, ‘Second Piece of the Puzzle’ and ‘Third Piece of the Puzzle’ introduce each of these ‘chapters’. While listening to the ‘Third Piece of the Puzzle’ the melody brought to my mind echoes of Oil 10’s ‘Lost In Metropolis’ but you will find in the album songs with a harsher electronic sound such as ‘Time to March The Riddle’ and ‘Holy Haunted Box’. ‘Second piece of a puzzle’ sounds like the soundtrack of an unwritten futuristic movie scenario and resonates Blade Runner.

Intelligent Dance Music or IDM, is mainly computer generated so inspiration and creativity are the key qualities that a band/musician need in order to produce something substantial and interesting that stands out from the existing experimental music scene. This album is released by Ant-Zen a German label which specialises in experimental/ idm/noise music and even though somebody might believe that the genre is already saturated, here comes Hologram_ who adds his own personal touch and creates an album with unique and identifiable characteristics.

A music of infinite worlds and the mastering of the art of stylistic antitheses 

Having as a starting point an interest in film music, the songs of this album create a mysterious resonating orchestral environment from beginning to end and possess the qualities of classical music pieces (e.g. ‘The Ballet of Abstract Motion’, ‘Room 586’). Simple melodical samples in piano can be listened throughout the album and are carefully positioned within each track in order to enhance the mystifying atmosphere. At the same time, these simple melodies create a calm atmosphere where slow rhythms dominate and seem to represent purity and innocence. The harsh, noisy, distorted and quick electronic sounds that surround those melodical samples seem to be in conflict with them, aiming at conquering them with their intense energy. It’s very interesting to discover how these energies manage to coexist and heighten our senses in every way. This contradiction is further intensified in ‘Before the Sun Will Rise’ and ‘Time to March The Riddle’

‘Parasite/Paradox/ Paralysis’ brings to mind the soundtrack of ‘Hellraiser’ while ‘Origamia’ sounds like an abstract and rhythmically slower version of the main theme of Star Wars. Perhaps the song that makes a more clear reference to the existing IDM music scene is ‘Symmetric lines’ but then again, Hologram_ proves his ability to deviate from the norm by adding choral vocals after 3 minutes from the start and giving an orchestral feel to the music which after 1 minute he deconstructs in order to end the song in a mysterious sound environment. The resulting sound is far from a pastiche stylistically because all the elements are very well tied together. As a result I never wondered how the transitions from one style to another happen within the same song and from one song to the next and I welcomed all the antitheses. If this is not the definition of creativity and dexterity, I don’t know what is. Examples of these changes in style can be listened 3.04 minutes from the start and then again at 5.04 in ‘Holy Haunted Box’, 4.48 minutes from the start of ‘Time to March the Riddle’, 10’ after the beginning of ‘Parasite/Paradox/Paralysis’.

You can’t help but delve into a scientific/mathematic/philosophical interpretation of the songs based on their titles (e.g. ‘Time to March The Riddle’, ‘Hypnotic Equation’). At the same time this album has a rare mixture of spatial (e.g.‘ Endless Passage’, ‘Fall Into The Maze’, ‘Room 586’) , emotional and spiritual qualities which offer us too many points of reference while listening to the songs.

The album begins its ending 4 minutes before the end of ‘Parasite/Paradox/Paralysis’ and throughout ‘Room 586’the atmosphere seems to be discharged emotionally with calmer melodies. The song and the album ends with a heartbeat which will follow us until Hologram_’s next release.

I don’t have a favourite song of the album because as a whole this album gives me a great and different experience every time I listen to it. So allow yourselves to be absorbed and trust Hologram_ to delineate a musical path for you.

 9/10

Blaue Rosen

You can purchase Hologram_’s album by following this link: https://mailorder.ant-zen.com/product/id/2372