Zanov Music 2023
Lost In The Future
On a fantastic voyage into the great unknown, French maven of synthetic sonics fathoms frontiers of faraway feasibilities.
Nigh on five decades down the line from the moment he fell in love with artificial aural shapes, Pierre Salkazanov is furthering his forays into this dimension with enviable freshness of approach, boldly yet never afraid to reveal retro roots of the route the veteran’s about to take on a particular album – whatever theme it may go about. While the intrepid explorer’s previous trip found him on "Chaos Islands" trying to express random beauty through musical form, seven tracks of that record’s successor follow a sci-fi facet of the ivories driver’s space ‘n’ time truckin’. However, the listener brave enough to embark on the journey with him will be transported beyond the events horizon not only cerebrally but also in terms of pure human feelings.
As if reflected in the eyes of next generations, epic opener “Quantum World” offers cinematic electronica and scintillating effects that, right from the start, unseal one of this platter’s defining features: its immense dynamic scope – an amplitude ever so often ignored by progressive rock’s keyboard players yet deployed by Pierre as part of his tuneful cycle’s flavors – offset with crystalline new-age-like shards of notes and solemn, church-organ-esque passages which, echoing and given a groove, help outline the piece’s spatial grandeur. Highly impressive, here’s a cosmic edifice to convert the faithless into zealots of solid, and at the same time transparent, sounds, whereas the fabulous chords of electric piano and the flutter of faux flute contrasting factory clang on “Conscious Machines” and the techno balladry of “Brain To Brain” seem as natural as the vibrant symphonic waves of “Extended Life” or the folk melody that will make “Living With Robots” quite captivating. But then, there’s a spiritual pulse of the almost amorphic “Interstellar Travel” and the magnificent throb of “Time Manipulation” bringing on an exciting, and anxious, finale.
As a result, getting lost in the future, with a guide like Zanov, is an impossible – or, if one prefers it, pleasant – prospect.
*****
