Cymbalick Music 2026
The Fourth Crossing
Golden era of electronica is revitalized on an array of evocative pieces from a renowned harvester of sonic details.
The pursuers of the swath Tim Morse has been cutting for more than twenty years through the tall grass of prog rock to mark his path may think, looking at the title of this platter, that the American composer turned from the route where “Roundabout” used to swirl to the terrain where the “Firth Of Fifth” waters flow – but no, the keyboard wiz’s change of ways will take the listener on a completely different trip. Perhaps it required the cathartic look back to "Transformation" for Tim to reassess what "Soundtracks" hinted at two years before “The Fourth Crossing” appeared and find a refuge in Kosmische musik – given fresh sentimentality and stripped of mental disturbances. Not always serene, the dozen tracks on display are pacifying despite feeling impassioned.
And this is what will set this album apart from new age – emotions and the sense of endless adventurousness Edgar Froese would have approved of. Morse not coincidentally chose to launch his fifth solo offering from the subaquatic depths of “Submerged” that floats to the sonic surface as a synthesizer-painted Leviathan, with delicate piano ripples stitching the various layers which gel to define an alluring tune punctuated by exciting pulses. There’s a much more pronounced groove to “Vibration” whose euphoric waves of church organ rule the game until infectious Mini-Moog passages reveal a playful side of Tim’s trip into the great unknown, and once the motorik “Assembly Line” focuses on the Kraut-techno, the experimental aspects of it all become irresistible. So though “Dreamcatcher” can seem a little abstract, unexpected rhythmic and melodic details added to the flow make the results arresting, and while “Hieroglyphics” dances towards art-pop, “Eternal” marries acoustic grandeur to electric vista in a faux-symphonic way of rare beauty.
Defying expectations and going beyond the obvious is one of Morse’s methods here, allowing “Confusion In Aisle 14” to move smoothly from a solemn swell to a series of jagged lines which form a crooked pattern to produce a quiet craze on a dancefloor, especially when Tim’s fingers go off on a Fender Rhodes tangent and the number switches to acid jazz. With no need for voices, “Structure” introduces vocoder, yet splashes and flashes of ivories draw attention from any alien words to the “Chariots Of Fire” sort of heroic drive which the short titular cut dissolves in a stereo swirl to render the listener dizzy and ready for “Zephyr” that picks up where “Oxygène” left off to occupy an adjacent spatial plane. No wonder “Space Station Lounge” follows it by applying a few performative techniques within a mere four minutes to let the audience relax again and then enter “The Celestial Cathedral”: the album’s triumphal, well-grounded finale, an apex of the spirituality concealed in every preceding track.
A celebration of life, “The Fourth Crossing” is Tim Morse’s bridge to the future.
*****
