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Two tracks lasting 31 and 21 minutes, plus a 4-minute track in between - this is EM from the top of the tree – It spans decades, yet it is totally timeless!
This is a beautifully packaged CD in a Gate-Fold Card Sleeve that comes snugly fitted in a re-sealable PVC bag.
Featuring Alisa on synths, guitar, FX, samples, bass and electronic percussion, with additional drumming courtesy of the mysterious I.D.F., ‘World In Greyscale’ features just two tracks land one shorter piece.
The half-hour opener is the title track and if you could imagine a darker, ambient answer to Klaus Schulze's ‘Totem’, mixed with elements of BANCO DE GAIA's ‘Last Train To Lhasa’, you'd be in the right place, only this is altogether much further out into deep space, and so organic, it's amazing!
With a sea of drumbeats taking up the beating heart of the track, the layers and textures created are pure magic. Vast swathes of cosmic synths, almost space-rock like synth swoops, deep swirls of electronics and an even deeper bass, all combine to give this a positively galaxian feel and soundscape - in many ways, the perfect meeting of synth and chill-out.
As the piece progresses, the rhythm takes on a train-like quality as you are taken on a journey with all manner of textures, spacetronics and implied, but not stated melodic undercurrents.
All the time, there's always something going on in the mix – Lettmann-esque heavenly vocals for a minute or two here, filmic samples for a minute or two there, but all the while the huge sounding infinity of space music is spreading across, over, behind and beyond the rhythms that are propelling the piece to perfection.
Just short of the thirteen-minute mark, hushed voices echo deep in the mix as the electronics whirl overhead, and the rhythms coalesce with electronic sequencer-like patterns joining the main core, and the track turns into this amazing mix of samples, bass synths, high-flying electronics as a musical solar wind blasts through the icy worlds being created.
What sounds like guitar textures arrive around the sixteen-minute mark, as more echoed vocals make it sound like some eerie, altogether scarier, early seventies electronic soundscaping, only then to put you into the ambient arena as continuously it all changes shape and the story of the track as a whole.
The final ten minutes see the music burst through the black hole into the light with the menace replaced by warmth, the rhythms spreading out but the synths still dominating the cosmic landscape, but with that sense of darkness never far away.
Overall, this title piece is mesmerising and hypnotic, with so much going on you'll need several listens to take it all in - just one phenomenal track
The 2nd long track is the twenty-one minute ‘Sepia’ and it is the white to ‘Grayscale’s black!
With a much more textural rhythm of electronic and acoustic percussion, deep bass and throbbing electronics at the core, right from the start, the synthesizers create huge clouds of gorgeousness that sweep across the horizon in full space music flight. Again, the BDG-esque train-like rhythms are propelling it forward, but so interwoven into the track that you take it all in, layers, textures, rhythms and all. Once again, nothing is repeated and nothing stands still as the mighty magical and majestic music rolls inexorably forward, the synths much more melodic in their approach, and this time, the Schulze element really shines through, only way more modern sounding than his early seventies rhythmic excursions. The full sound envelops the listener as you take it all in, whispered voices echo briefly, samples appear then they’re gone, swirls of synths intertwine all around the exterior and, overall, as a multi-layered slice of synth-laden, incredibly rhythmically addictive electronic creativity goes, this is pretty much a wondrous slice of electronic music.
In between the two long epics is a four and a half minute cross-over track entitled ‘Fading Into White’, which is built on a rhythmic pattern that could almost be an outtake from Schulze's ‘Totem’ sessions, as synths sparkle and play all around, guitar textures sound almost like sitars and the melody lines become rhythms, as it all climbs and spirals. The addition of Coral's “Cosmic Jokers-esque” whispered, echoed vocal, only serves to heighten the track further, so engaging that you wished it could have been longer.
This is Electronic Music from the top of the tree – It spans decades, yet it is totally timeless!
Andy G (2025)
‘World In Grey Scale’ is released on 28th March 2025
Also released on the same day: SPACE MIRRORS: NEXUS BETWEEN SPACE & ART (Stock # 2207057)
MONO CHROME (ALISA CORAL): WORLD IN GREYSCALE Track List:
01. World In Greyscale (30:18)
{"Cautionary tale:
Once your culture is gone, it's not coming back"}
02. Fading Into White (4:30)
{"When the time goes by
All the tears should dry
Good and evil fade
End of cruel charade
Peoples calm and still
On the silver Screen
Taken by the light
Disappears in white"}
03. Sepia (21:46)
{This world long gone
The pictures of the past
This world in gone
Like old postcards"}
TPT - 56:36