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Reviews

Tempustry — Le Voyage du Temps
(Time Voyage Music TVM-007, 2005, CD)

by Paul Hightower, Published 2007-03-01

Le Voyage du Temps Cover art

This album is American musician Allen Brunelle’s first solo album and finds him exploring his passion for classic analog synthesizer music, à la Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Michael Garrison, and Kraftwerk. It’s a switch for someone better known for his drumming work with Illuvatar, The Dark Aether Project, Architectural Metaphor, and now as a member of the German goth outfit Todesbonden. Other than occasional drum machine tracks, this album is a non-stop love affair with the myriad sounds available from vintage Moog, Korg, Oberheim, and Sequential Circuits machines, among others. Tracks like “Horizon” and “Perpetual Ocean” revel in portamento leads while pieces like “Precious Dreams” offer moody beds of synths married to skittering hi-hat and programmed drums that make no apologies for their low-tech quality. Brunelle isn’t blazing any trails as a composer or player, instead going for a rhythmically steady though never urgent approach with very straightforward melodic lines that even a child could follow. His intent seems to be to let the sounds created by the instruments be the main attraction rather than flashy technique. To my ear the pieces lack some oomph in the lower registers that would help beef things up, plus there’s a certain sameness to it all that gets repetitive after the first four or five tracks. Odds are, though, that most fans of classic prog or EM music have an affinity for the sound of vintage synths so Brunelle is certain to score with a broad range of listeners on some level.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 34, 2005 releases

Related artist(s): Allen Brunelle (Tempustry)

 

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