Review by Andy Garibaldi, AUDION MAGAZINE, #88 August 2026, p. 43, 2026-08-07.Inspired by what I gather to be a 19th century wordsmith by the name of Mallarme, the ex-Tangerine Dream and ex-Lightwave musicians have come up with three compositions lasting between 17 and 21 minutes featuring remarkably beautiful music.
“Un Coup De Dés” opens with a slowly unfolding piano melody that kinda lulls you into a false sense of security, since you may be expecting it to lead into something more solid, but instead, it evolves into this electronic cosmic fogbank. Right up to the 13 minute point, layers of synths, wash over each other and it’s all about texture, space and minimalism. Just over 13 minutes, the piano re-appears, but in a much darker setting as brief burts of drones come from below while the pianist is clearly not being paid by the note, with single chords allowed to rise up and slowly dissipate like smoke rings into a blue sky. Thus takes you to the final 90 seconds whereupon this wondrous choral section appears briefly- and it ends…….only to move straight into “Jamais N’abolira” which, at almost the same length as the first piece, is…..well……another lengthy track of non-rhythmic, non-melodic, textural, spacey, cosmic electronic music. As you’d expect, time and motion move very slowly in this universe, as synth textures, layers and sonic explorations move over, under and around each other, and it kinda comes across as a 21st century answer to Tangerine Dream’s “Zeit”, only more minimal.
The final track, “Le Hasard”, is again, another 17+ minute exercise in cosmic textural music, only here there’s a bit more of an edge, a lot more darkness and , in places, louder, as the two musicians continue their electronic voyage into the realms of the seemingly infinite deep electronic unknown.
Fair to say, if you got off on “Zeit”, you’ve got a fair chance of loving this – personally, I can’t get enough of it – a work of greatness.
BORGES, on the other hand, is more varied and more exploratory. Its six tracks last between 5 and 9 minutes and are, as a result, more of an adventure in sound that the other. It opens with Elogio De La Sombra, a near 8 minute track that reminded me, in terms of its atmosphere and minimalist approach, of that final scene in “2001 A Space Odyssey” where Frank wotsisname is in that room in total silence apart from the odd sounds here and there, and it’s got that feel to it – here, a drone like undercurrent is barely heard and on top, assorted piano notes, synth textures and about as little as they can get away with, impart a quite serene sense of darkness over the whole track. From there the next three tracks are quite the unbroken ride through he silence of the universe, with Aleph occupying the more bass oriented end of the cosmic music spectrum, and a track where the silences are almost as important as the music. The near 9 minute Labyrinths introduces a melody for the first time, played on piano, while the synth chords are like water droplets as the track becomes louder and a rhythm appears, albeit a kind of marching one, which then morphs into a rather gloomy area of the musical universe, but it works and thanks to the addition of unexpected chords and notes along the way, captures your imagination. The album ends with Uqbar, in a sense following on from the business of the previous track and ending with a more optimistic, if slightly disarming, melodic – of a fashion – finale.
Two albums then, which complement each other well, will appeal to the cosmic music minimalist crowd and are, in essence, totally timeless.
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