Sequencers to Escape Velocity

Image courtesy of mrbungle.nl, whose Dutch language article on new Zombi album, Escape Velocity, contains links for the band, the DeLorean, Giorgio Moroder, and Jean-Michel Jarre. Plus a SoundCloud stream of the preview track, "Shrunken Heads."

Other than Anglicizing the links, can I really improve on that?!



"Shrunken Heads" from Escape Velocity (2011)

As one YouTube commenter summed it up, "oh noes its out of my narrowly confined boundaries of taste in music, therefore I can't like it!" Well, almost. I was prepared for a soft landing already - first by the Steve Moore remixes, then his solo stuff, then for sure by Miracle's Fluid Window (2011). When one Zombi and one Æthenor end up creating this, the times they are a-changing... And I bought that album!

So Zombi have moved on towards Italo disco for real. It's not like they hadn't explored even more explicitly dance-oriented music before. But I always figured that was just playing inside the club where some coke-hungry model was getting her eyes gouged out in the back alley in an obscure Dario Argento flick. And it was a B-side to a B-side! Plus the previous album had been heading to an even-more-'70s prog direction...



"Slow Oscillations" from Escape Velocity (2011)

Download component tracks of this tune for a remix competition over at Self-Titled Mag. And that's about half of the record... it's pretty short.

Anyway, I like the new album so far, and some parts of it a lot. But there were only a handful of artists that I'm into, doing what they did the best: synth-based high-grade horror soundtrack-inspired music... John Carpenter, the Italians, the art-house. That would be Zombi, Umberto (now heading into Jan Hammer territory), Giallos Flame (last seen doing the soundtrack to a fairly terrible blaxpoitation-sexploitation horror-comedy NSFW) - and that's about it.



"Time of Troubles" from Escape Velocity (2011)

That's the final track on the album and my initial favorite. Maybe it's just the calmer, more sinister pace.

The dark horse/hidden gem/sneak attack/sleeper hit might be "DE3," the longest song at about 9 minutes. It seems to be reaching for the transcendent repetition and release of Maserati, but needs some live bass guitar and more locked-groove (a la Fuchs) or baroque-intricate (typical AE Paterra) drumwork.

And since I originally started writing this, someone has finally posted that one!


"DE3" from Escape Velocity (2011)

Honestly, I could go either way. It's still early, so I'm not sure how much I will grow into this one. Or if it will slide in and out of rotation, or even drop off the radar. We'll see...