Label: Hologram (North America)/Fünfundvierzig (Europe) Format: CD
O that wacky Joel Vandroogenbroeck! I am on about my eighth listen to Alchemic Universe and what keeps happening is that I forget it might not mean to be so serious. What a bunch of flexing of the ole keyboards! This is Prophet 600tastick! ooo, the DX-7, the Korgs, the Junos even! An Eighties sort of extravaganza of synthesizer music gone mad. Did someone already coin “space oddity” as a phrase? O yes, I think I have heard it somewhere. OK, so odd space music and new romantic style arrangements, and Laurie Anderson style spoken words, hesitant and halting with rhythms not unlike a washing machine gone off balance during the spin cycle. Alchemic Universe must have been a real kick to make.
I don’t know really if Mr. V and company are taking the piss out of electronics, or if it is just my own lacklustre sense of humour. Whatever the case, this is a funny record, and it keeps being funny right when I realize it has lulled me off into a dreamy atmospheric sort of state, and I am thinking, “hmmm, this is quite pretty…”. I keep having MTV flashbacks and such and then it all goes wonky again reminding me that it can’t be all that serious. Brainticket. Best name ever. Just when I realize I am dancing while doing the dishes, some spring mount silliness jilts me back to the here and now and I have to laugh for thinking this could be played at some club, somewhere. Well, it could!
And the irony? One of my favourite songs in the world is one called “Brainticket Cover” by my friend (and possibly yours), Freq’s own David Cotner under the name |||. This fabulous collection of original material, composed by Joel Vandroogenbroeck, written by Lance Bunda and spoken to by Carole Muriel sounds strangely like Eighties cover songs. Alchemic Universe doesn’t contain any Synth-Pop at all though, and doesn’t exclusively have that sound at all, but it still somehow sounds like it was constructed the way electronic music was back then. It would probably take a truckload (at a guess) of synth stands to set up a performance of Alchemic Universe, which seems very unacceptable in the current trend for making music on machines that fit easily into your pocket. I for one like that it would take so many cables and wood-veneered boxes with plastic knobs on to play this music. And if the joke’s on me, and Mr.Vandroogenbroeck does have a little machine which does everything in his pocket, then all the better! O thank you Brainticket! You have just put the (sic) back in music!
-Lilly Novak-
