Mind Over Matter
Avatar
Why oh why do bands have to do this to me? This album contains one of the best tracks I have ever heard and yet it starts with a sickly song complete with mystical / sentimental lyrics- complete gibberish. To make matters worse they finish the album with a radio cut of the track.

Frustration doesn’t come close as the remaining fifty three minutes just can’t be faulted. Without the opening track ‘Thunderchild’ this would surely have been one of the best albums released all year. The outstanding number is the title track ‘Avatar’, twenty minutes of pure brilliance. It is a collaboration with Stephen Parsick who’s album ‘Traces of the Past’ has only just fallen out of our charts (and this only because we ran out of stock) after having been there for months. ‘Avatar’ unbelievably however is even better than anything on that album. Things start quietly enough but then a guitar sequence can just start to be heard. The guitar being very processed so that it sounds like another synth as on Ashra’s ‘Inventions for Electric Guitar’. We then get a trademark Parsick sequence combining in such a way with the guitar as to send shivers of excitement down the spine. A rhythm is then added and cosmic shimmers blast over the top like a meteor shower burning up as it plummets earthwards. Intensity builds and builds. The track will appeal to sequencer nuts such as me but it is so much more than that. You are hit with a whole wall of pulsating sound with so much in it shifting and gyrating that it is very hard to concentrate on any one element. One’s imagination is buffeted from one aspect to another but with each passing second awe grows and grows. Do not listen whilst in the company of anyone else as you might look a bit of an idiot with mouth open wide in amazement staring at your hi-fi in disbelief. This track will remain with me forever. Next time Graham appears on Ashley’s show I hope he takes it with him.

The other four tracks on the album are also superb. On ‘Magic Garden’ relaxed synth pads give way to a rhythmic sequence which becomes heavier and heavier. Chants can be heard over the top as the sequence shifts and really kicks. The underlying synth textures also work perfectly. At times it reminded me of some of the more rhythmic moments from Paul Haslinger’s ‘World Without Rules’, especially in the way that things start calmly and end up becoming insanely out of control but in such a wonderful way. ‘Freak Street’ has an hilarious start with a waiter reading out the contents of his menu, each item coming with Garlic Bread! When the track gets under way a quirky rhythm, ideal for a summers day, is used to provide the main structure with pleasant melodies weaving around it. A real foot tapper. ‘Avatar’s Dream’ is again rhythmic but more complex and mysterious than the previous track. The effect created is very hypnotic and rather psychedelic. Another stunner. ‘Beyond’ is a rather spacey affair, wonderfully descriptive but with a gentle, restrained, chugging rhythm. An amazing album, just programme out the first and last tracks. (DL)

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