This is a very catchy track where you just can’t help tapping your toes (and other bits) to. The track is briefly punctuated by a lull in the driving rhythm at just before the two-minute mark, but quickly busts back into action again, with the beat ever stronger and extra melodic layers of top. ‘Nozama’ is very much an up-beat affair – again a bit SPACE ‘Magic Fly’ or JMJ ‘Oxygene’ like with its pulsating bass-line and simple, yet highly effective catchy melody line on top. Deep synth bass chords form a kind of framework around the background ambience, then a synth lead melody filters into the mix and we now have a really nice groove going where the tune layers are improvised with until the track spirals off into deepest space.
‘Isotherm’ opens in cosmic territory with a undulating drone that is punctuated periodically by a signalling synth motif, and then, just after a minute a rhythm drives over the horizon to take the track into a nice flowing passage. At just past the two-minute mark there is a changeover of the lead instruments, with huge waves of sweeping synth chords coming in from various angles, and these are later overlaid by the more tuneful synthesizers again – Nice track – great, pulsating punchy rhythms. ‘Walking To Antares’ is very Jarre-like with driving sequenced rhythms and attached effects, with a flowing high-register lead synth melody flying over the top. Here’s the in-depth stuff… ‘Labrat Liberator’ is a briskly paced melodic opener with a punchy bass-line and a steadily growing melody line over the top which is catchy and a little SPACE ‘Magic Fly’ like is style with the odd syn-drum effects some distant faint voice samples in the background. Please Note: A Download code for a Bonus Track comes with this CD.
When I started playing ‘Spinal Staircase’ the first big-name musician I thought of was Jean-Michel Jarre, but by the time the last track had completed it’s near 30-minute run, the “Berlin School” of thought was firmly fixed in my mind, but with a more modern slant on the rhythmic element – a bit like how AXESS sounds in full rhythmic flow – bombastic, dynamic, hard-driving and ever so exciting! The instruments Hassinen used to produce ‘Spinal Staircase’ were: ARP Odyssey Mk3 / Minikorg 700s / Ensoniq EPS 16+ / Korg 01Wfd / Roland JP8000 / Roland XP-50 / Kurzweil K2000s / Akai S4000 / Korg M50 / Korg TR61 / Addictive for Ipad / various Sequencers & efex and e.guitar. This is the 2013 solo album from Ami Hassinen, one part of the Finnish Synth trio NEMESIS.
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