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AMAZING SOUNDS No.97 / January 5, 2001
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Happy 2001!

CONTENTS:

THE AQUATIC ADVENTURE OF NEURONIUM. MICHEL HUYGEN PRESENTS
"HYDRO". Michel Huygen (Neuronium) has created a superb album of
electronic music, characterized, among other things, by an unusual
and profound manipulation of sound.

REVIEWS:
NEURONIUM: "HYDRO" Konga Music
MICHEL HUYGEN: "DROIT AU COEUR" Tuxedo Music
JONN SERRIE: "CENTURY SEASONS" Miramar Recordings
ROEDELIUS: "ROEDELIUSWEG" Prudence / BSC Music

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THE AQUATIC ADVENTURE OF NEURONIUM.
MICHEL HUYGEN PRESENTS "HYDRO".

Michel Huygen (Neuronium) has created a superb album of
electronic music, characterized, among other things, by an
unusual and profound manipulation of sound. Water in its
multiple manifestations (oceans, rivers, lakes, streams)
and what it means to our planet is the theme that has
inspired him and on which he has shaped his artistic
impressions.

In a time when every electronic sound with an acoustic
aspect comes from samplers, few synthesists seem to be able
to sculpt sounds of an acoustic appearance directly on the
synthesizer. Although to record "Hydro", Michel Huygen
utilized samplers as well, some of the most remarkable and
"acoustic" sounds in the CD were created by him by means of
his skilled manipulation of the processes of electronic
synthesis. Thus, for instance, the female solo vocals in
"Regina Maris" is neither a true human voice, nor even a
sampled one. It is a sound created by Michel. On the other
hand, some of the water noises heard in several points of
the album are not real, nor are they sampled ones, but
rather, once again, an illusion that this composer, like
the good sound ceramist he is, knows how to create. The
Real and the Unreal are blended and intertwined in this CD.
The fact that Huygen succeeds in deceiving our ears up to
such a point, makes him into a sort of magician of
synthesizers, capable of giving audible life to The
Impossible.

As is usual in his latest releases, Michel himself has
taken care of the graphic design. The cover idealizes in an
almost mystic way the vital element that features this
album. The back cover includes a remarkable, ethereal
metamorphosis of Michel's face, which appears to evoke
Captain Nemo or the god Neptune. The design extends as well
to the compact disc itself, which seems to be like the
surface of a raft. It should be remembered that Michel
Huygen was one of the first electronic artists to abandon
the standart aesthetic patterns of CDs for his releases, as
well as those of their cases, thus obtaining a further
scope to develop his artistic ideas.

"Directo al corazón" ("Droit au coeur"), released some
months before "Hydro", was a much expected album, since in
it Michel Huygen intended to summarize the more "cyber-
romantic" trends in his music, that is to say, those pieces
that, without diverging from a cosmic perspective, possess
an important emotive load. In this sense, Huygen has
achieved the shaping of his own romantic style, like only a
few artists have been able to do, among whom mention must
be made of Vangelis or Kitaro.

The collaboration by Pascal Languirand in the CD also
raised great expectations. Pascal Languirand, an active
electronic composer since the seventies, became specially
famous with the world hit of his theme "Living on Video" by
Trans-X, composed by him. The collaboration between these
two great artists of the musical avantgarde has been shaped
in the song "Sólo pensando en tí".

The success of this release has become obvious given the
fact that the first release was sold out after merely a
month of international distribution.

The sudden success of Huygen in Brazil continues to grow. A
proof of this is given by the indigenous re-releases of his
albums, such as for instance "Infinito" (which has a new
cover, by the way), or the compilation "Neoromance".

It is not unusual that the works by Huygen have a large
appeal for the general audience. The music by Michel, far
from the constraints dictated by fashions, continues to
gain new listeners, no matter whether they are new or old
themes. Although this is a hardly commercial kind of music,
even anti-commercial music according to many of the
criteria of the recording industry, he has connected with
the audience so well during these almost twenty-five years,
that as these lines are being written, the amount of albums
sold is on the threshold of a million. With practically a
million of records sold, Michel is thus found among the few
authors of electronic music that have reached that volume
of record difussion, a reduced club to which such artists
as Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and some
other first-rate artists belong. As this article is being
written, the best selling album by Huygen is Psykya.

Of course, the visits to the web of Neuronium, designed and
carefully maintained by Michel, are a must for any follower
of his music, or simply for anyone wishing to voyage on a
web designed per se as a work of art. Even though it
accomplishes its function as a source for basic information
about the artist, the web page of Neuronium, which is
registering a really high number of visits, constitutes a
good opportunity to get to know an excellent example of
interactive web-art. The web also includes links to the
virtual galleries of cosmic and supernatural paintings by
Tomás Gilsanz, a graphic artist related for many years with
the audiovisual performances by Neuronium. To access the
official web of Neuronium as well as others related to
Huygen, the best advice is to visit:

http://www.cybernium.com

During these last months, Michel has been quite in contact
with Constance Demby, due to her moving to Spain. This
composer has settled both her residence and her work place
near to where he lives, and this geographical nearness,
together with their friendship and their artistic
compatibility foretells interesting collaborations in the
future.

Michel is already working on what is to become his new
release: "Azizi". The African origin of this word that
gives its name to the album, represents in a way an
aknowledgement to the culture of the place that saw his
birth, since, even if he has spent most of his life in
Europe, his birthplace was Africa. Using for the title this
word of the language he came to fluently know in a time of
his life, Michel tenderly recalls the memories of his early
childhood, as an acknowledgement to several African
cultural elements that, somehow, have been absorbed by the
dominant culture of the industrialized nations without
recognizing their genuine origins. At the same time, this
being his thirtieth album in his career, it seems to be the
appropriate moment to have a look to an intense life as
well as meditate a little on the circumstances of one's
coming to this world themselves.

(By: Jorge Munnshe)

====================

REVIEWS:

NEURONIUM:
"HYDRO"
Konga Music
Michel Huygen (Neuronium) has always shown a powerful
imagination when it comes to creating new universes of
music and sound. And this album is a perfect example of
this fact. Planned as a symphony inspired by water and
everything it means for our world, "Hydro" evokes to the
point of perfection a voyage through the most spectacular
lakes, the wildest, most wondrous waterfalls, the most
beautiful rivers, the most impressive glaciers, and of
course, the oceans in all their vastness. It is difficult
to create instrumental music that transmits the visual
messages that this CD contains with the neatness found in
"Hydro". What turns out to be most astounding is the fact
that Huygen has not resorted to the obvious solution of
incorporating water sounds as a decorative background of
the music, something always passive, but rather he has
transformed the very water sounds themselves into
instruments that perform part of the melody or the rhythm.
To achieve this is extremely difficult, not only from the
artistic point of view, but also from the technical one.
Acting as a magician of sound, Huygen makes us listen to
such impossible sonic events as the sound of snowflakes
falling gently onto the ground, the whispering of water
drops moving within the sea, or the canticles of sirens. As
if he were sculpting liquid water, he manipulates the
watery sounds so that they adopt solid forms, of diverse
textures and timbres. From the lush of a tropical lake to
the enigmas of the ocean abysses, the listener is taken to
a journey overflowing with emotions. Although Huygen did
not plan "Hydro" as an obscure work, there is no lack of
mysterious passages, where one can, for instance, feel as
if we were descending into the impenetrable darkness of the
abyssal depths, with ghostly echoes that evoke the sonar of
a submarine, and metallic murmurs that suggest the
threatening pressure of water on a bathyscaph.
JORGE MUNNSHE

MICHEL HUYGEN:
"DROIT AU COEUR"
Tuxedo Music
>From the first moment we listen to this album, it is
obvious that Michel Huygen has loaded a great amount of
feelings in the creation of this CD, which reviews the
essence of the most "cyber-romantic" side of his artistic
trajectory. "Droit au coeur" ("Direct to the heart") also
counts with an interesting incursion of Huygen's into the
sung romantic ballad, under the form of a collaboration
with the composer and singer Pascal Languirand, an
imaginative renovator of electronic music that became
famous specially thanks to his theme "Living on Video"
(Trans-X). "Sólo pensando en tí", which is the title of
this track, combines Languirand's vocals modelled in his
peculiar style between the ethereal and the Gregorian, with
music composed by Huygen. The result shows that both
artists know very well how to combine their respective
potentials to create themes of a high quality at the same
time being easy to listen to, which can reach a very wide
audience. In the same manner as the cybernetic hand on the
cover seems to have a life and warmth of its own, the
collection of compositions in the album has a certain
unearthly nature, yet at the same time it turns out to be
so near to what is human as our own emotions are, as if the
message of the CD were the fact that our feelings are
capable of being projected beyond our condition of mortal
subjects bound to the biological hardships of corporeal
life.
JORGE MUNNSHE

NEURONIUM / MICHEL HUYGEN
Michel Huygen is a Spanish synthesist of Belgian origin who began
his musical career by the early seventies, as a member of several
bands of psychedelic rock. In 1976, he founded the band Neuronium,
together with Carlos Guirao, Albert Giménez and other musicians
who soon after abandoned the band. Giménez left the band after
recording Vuelo Químico (1978), and Guirao also left after
Chromium Echoes (1982). Since then, Huygen is the only member of
Neuronium, accompanied by various musicians occasionally but
composing all the music himself. Some of his albums are signed as
Neuronium, and others with his own name. Huygen has composed movie
soundtracks, has designed synthesizer sounds, and has produced
some other musicians.
Essential recordings:
NEURONIUM:
-QUASAR 2C361
-VUELO QUIMICO
-DIGITAL DREAM
-THE VISITOR
-CHROMIUM ECHOES
-INVISIBLE VIEWS
-HERITAGE
-ALMA
-SUPRANATURAL
-FROM MADRID TO HEAVEN
-NUMERICA
-OLIM
-SYBARIS
-EXTRISIMO
-ONIRIA
-IN LONDON (& Vangelis)
-ALMA (WITH CD-ROM TRACK)
-A SEPARATE AFFAIR (& Vangelis)
-PSYKYA
-ALIENIKON
-HYDRO
MICHEL HUYGEN:
-ABSENCE OF REALITY
-CAPTURING HOLOGRAMS
-BARCELONA 1992
-ELIXIR
-INTIMO
-EN BUSCA DEL MISTERIO
-INFINITO
-MUSICA PARA LA BUENA MESA
-ASTRALIA (& Fernando Jiménez del Oso)
-INTIMO (THE DEFINITIVE EDITION)
-SONAR
-ULTRACOSMOS
-DROIT AU COEUR

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you
only have to use this link:

http://gemm.com/q.cgi?rb=AMAZINGS&artist=neuronium

or this one:

http://gemm.com/q.cgi?rb=AMAZINGS&artist=michel+huygen

JONN SERRIE:
"CENTURY SEASONS"
Miramar Recordings
"Century Seasons" is a two-CD retrospective featuring
eigtheen themes from his previous albums, two of which are
new tunes - "Deep Mystery", to appear on a future album,
"Lumia Nights", and "Andromeda Dream", specially composed
for this occasion. The tracks have been remixed and
redesigned so that the music flows in a consistent,
uninterrupted stream of cosmic soundscapes which can be
defined as the best Space Music ever.The electronic
textures, the subtle bits of melody and rhythm, flow in a
floating, timeless, swirling continuous cosmic throb, with
dreamy touches and romantic shades, taking us though the
magic of a multi-dimensional,wondrous experience. From the
darkness of deep space to the brigtness of stars, Serrie's
music has an energy that gives the listener the feeling of
belonging into an eternal, endless pulse of an ever-
expanding universe, leading our imagination through the
immensity of the cosmos in a tireless quest in the realms
of wonder. Mostly ambient space music, the themes weave a
tapestry like an extended science-fiction romantic
fairytale, a musical adventure taking place in the
fictional , mysterious lands of Ixlandia and Indra, a
starship voyage across the universe of space and time,
shrouded in the ethereal sounds that aid us in our
exploration of new imaginary worlds. In all this no doubt
is a real must for the lovers of this musical genre.
MONTSE ANDREU-MARIN

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use
this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004T8ZH/thesciencebookbo

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you
only have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/85242/thesciencebookbo

ROEDELIUS:
"ROEDELIUSWEG"
Prudence / BSC Music
Hans-Joachim Roedelius himself has composed, played,
arranged and recorded most of the themes in this album, in
his home studio in Austria, which includes the later
contribution of his collaborators Fabio Capanni and Eric
Spitzer-Marlin with their characteristic guitar tracks .His
music is, as usual, compelling, experimental at times,
avantgarde, true to his roots, and all this shows his very
personal style in each piece. Truly, as he once said, "My
solo work is an expression of my experience of life, a
self-portrait, a confession!" The ten themes in the CD
clearly illustrate this point, besides showing the
influence of the grooves of the younger generation, yet
ever retaining his personal approach to creativity in the
realms of avantgarde, electronic and New Instrumental
Music. With his Ambient/Trance highly influential work,
this album is no doubt a worthy addition to collection of
the fans of this legendary German composer.
MONTSE ANDREU-MARIN

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use
this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004TR28/thesciencebookbo

HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS
German musician Hans-Joachim Roedelius is a pioneer of electronic
and Ambient music. He began as a musician in the late sixties.
Together with Dieter Moebius he integrates the band Cluster, whose
first album, with Conrad Schnitzler, appeared in 1969. In the mid
seventies he initiated his solo career, without abandoning his
work in Cluster, although the activity of the duo has been
decreasing steadily in these last years. Also around the seventies
he began to collaborate with Brian Eno, and he was a member of the
band Harmonia as well, together with Michael Rother and Dieter
Moebius. Roedelius has composed movie soundtracks, has been
involved in several different artistic events, and has
collaborated with several musicians.
Essential recordings:
-DURCH DIE WUESTE
-LUSTWANDEL
-WENN DER SUEDWIND WEHT
-WASSER IM WIND
-OFFENE TUEREN
-MOMENTI FELICI
-BASTIONEN DER LIEBE
-DER OHREN SPIEGEL
-THE ATER WORKS (Hans-Joachim Roedelius and friends)
-LA NORDICA
-PINK, BLUE AND AMBER
-MOVE AND RESONATE (& Alquimia)
-ROEDELIUSWEG

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you
only have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/artist-glance/-/79490/thesciencebookbo

====================

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