Highlighting of ALCYONE by Clavius Reticulus

"This album is a Manifesto, a Book of Life because,
as Laurent (Sequentia Legenda) says,
Love feeds Love which is the primary Creative Force
of the Universe and the path to Ultimate Immortality."
Clavius Reticulus

An exclusive review by Clavius Reticulus
ALCYONE in the spotlight

While the Avians were exploring the constellation of Cassiopeia (Avian 3 - Cassiopeia), at the end of last year, the Sequentia Legenda vessel, piloted by Admiral Laurent Schieber, set off for a flamboyant nursery of stars, the Pleiades, which, seen from afar and with the naked eye, would be like a Big Dipper, only more compact and dense. In fact, its splendour originates in the brilliant light of its seven suns, of which Alcyone is the nodal point.

And, as you probably didn't know, our star is part of the complex system of this constellation. Alcyone also has rings, like Saturn or Neptune, but their rings stretch for light years and are made of photon energy. I will not go into the astrophysical and/or esoteric details (which Laurent has elaborated on), this is not the purpose of this review, but you should know that great changes will take place when these expanding rings reach our planet. When? We cannot say precisely, but there is no doubt that life and matter will be totally transformed.

 

And this is what Laurent's music illustrates with mastery throughout these four tracks, the first three of which are around twenty to twenty-five minutes long. His heartfelt music translates cosmic immensity through its unified but distinct dehiscent sonorities.

From the outset, one identifies the parallel universe to that of Master Schulze. Playful, sparkling sequences, very much influenced by the album "Mirage" which was THE revelation for Laurent! It is then as if the ship, after a dazzling acceleration, cuts the warp engine to let itself slide gently on the inertial vapours of the photons' dance. Pure moments of paradoxical eternity, the listener melts into the Universal Consciousness under the caress of the stellar winds.

Transcended even more by the sonorities of "The Ring of Golden Light" which, prolonged by the mesmerizing sequential flow of "Bon Voyage",
pull us into the transdimentional vortex of a Schulzian "Velvet Voyage".

In the end, the Golden Light envelops us and invites us to sublimate matter through an abiogenesis that forces the akashic elevation, the transfiguration of the chakras, the total Awakening of the Kundalini. Disembodiment and quantum entanglement of the soul and the original cosmic essence, sidereal rebirth, where dithyramb becomes weak to qualify the unfathomable depth of Laurent's music. It is the revelation of the intangible, the non-material and the unspoken.

This album is a Manifesto, a Book of Life because, as Laurent says, Love feeds Love ("Love feeds Love") which is the primary Creative Force of the Universe and the path to Ultimate Immortality.

More than indispensable! More than 5/5!

5/5
Clavius Reticulus

Jean-Claude Leroy (Clavius Reticulus) is a Belgian music reviewer.
His branch is electronic music. He has also composed four albums to date under the pseudonyms El Jice and Avian (eljiceavian.bandcamp.com). A fan of science fiction, he has created illustrations on the theme and wrote a novel in the early 2000s. He has worked for the Mellow Records label and for synthesist Andy Pickford.
His work can be found on facebook.com/zeta2reticuli/
and on his Youtube channel El Jice Arghones.

MY VISION FOR THE BERLIN SCHOOL IN 2023
A heart to heart sharing

I had the great pleasure to share with you my last opus, I will try here to reveal you some aspects from behind the scenes.

ALCYONE represents for me a beautiful adventure, rich in human, spiritual and musical experiences of course. It is a setting in light, the term is appropriate, on the continuum of my musical vision.

As you may know, my music is now tuned to the frequency of 432 Hz in order to offer the purest sound worlds possible. My goal with this new creation is to continue my heart-to-heart sharing, to infuse more and more serenity in order to help you better radiate your own wholeness.

I have to say that the composition phases have unfolded overall with a pleasant fluidity. Gratitude. I wanted through the various universes composing this album, in the structural form, in the color of the harmonies, in the choice of the timbres, to deliver a connection which is the most in adequacy with my feeling. I wished a sound matter the most favourable to dreams, which is at the same time rich and ethereal and comfortable to the listening. To lay down notes tinged with light that could evoke the freedom between the dimensions of a journey that could be relived each time and in a totally personal way.  

I hope that ALCYONE and its four sound universes will accompany you during your astral and immersive peregrinations, arousing in you for a long time beautiful and sweet emotions.

I wish you lots of listening pleasure.

ALCYONE

 

 

            

The "shared" interview with Stéphane Rousset

Here is the first of the series of "shared" interviews.
It is Stéphane Rousset who inaugurates this new section,
he is the one who had the idea of semi-cryptic questions
consisting of one word or a very short sentence.

Sequentia Legenda: Spirituality?

Stéphane Rousset: I respect those for whom this is central, but I must confess to being ignorant and a tad insensitive in this matter: I do not practice meditation, and I am neither religious nor mystical. I'm quite rational and analytical, like "if it's not measurable, it doesn't exist"! But then, since we're in a musical context, how do I explain the emotions that certain pieces of music evoke in me? I'm not talking about nice little emotions like choruses of ditties that we enjoy humming; I'm talking about really strong emotions, I'm talking about crying when listening to certain crescendos, certain passages, even certain chords. Is it similar to mystical ecstasy, is it a kind of trance? I'm also talking about more serene emotions, those that slow progressions or harmonically rich layers carry within them; AU REVOIR is a perfect example, THE APPROACH too (the layers behind the sequences), Bayreuth Return by Klaus Schulze too.

Problem: none of this is measurable. And yet, I know it and I live it, therefore it exists. Mmm...


Sequentia Legenda: Nature?

Stéphane Rousset: I may be a city boy, I may not know when the beetroot is harvested, but I know and feel the beauty of nature. I can sit on a stone wall in the vineyards of Lavaux, with Lake Geneva below and the Alps in front, and simply soak up this absolute beauty. I can gaze at the Aletsch glacier, doing nothing but feeling its majesty. At the same time, I am deeply saddened to see glaciers disappearing; I am deeply concerned about our blindness as a human species to the climate collapse that is upon us; if I had depressive tendencies, I would be in the deep end. So yes, I've stopped flying since 2018, I've sold my car, I've almost become a vegetarian, I recycle in every sense, and all this without any problem, but the bigger issue is elsewhere: what are we doing about the daily criminal acts of the fossil fuel industry? What are we doing about the fact that our governments are not treating the climate emergency as an emergency?

“And what about music?”, you might ask. Ah yes, well, you didn't know what the word nature would trigger in me...! But if your synths all run on electricity from renewable sources, Sequentia Legenda's music will be all the more in tune with the Universe.

Sequentia Legenda: Trains?

Stéphane Rousset: I have always loved riding trains. I can still hear the clackety-clack of the wheels on the unwelded rails of my childhood. And then between Paris and Lausanne, there was the Trans-Europ-Express, so, ten years later, a Kraftwerk connection (even if my discovery was earlier, with Autobahn).

But I think it was above all this clackety-clack that taught me about sequences, about superimposed loops; because there was not only the clackety-clack of one bogie, there were those of the neighbouring bogies, which were necessarily out of sync and of different tonalities. In short, car bogies were the ancestors of sequencers! And my imagination embroidered on it, grafted loops that didn't exist, added a mellotronic melodic topping, the whole thing evolving in slow motion, in line with the length of the journey.

Are we far from the infinities of space?
Are we far from Berlin? Not so sure.


About Stéphane Rousset: Hello, my name is Stéphane, I live in Lausanne, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, on the banks of Lake Geneva and opposite the mountains of Haute-Savoie (French Alps). I was born here (a long time ago... 67 years ago), it's my home, even if I did my primary school in Paris and three years of university in the USA. I learned physics in Switzerland, electricity and computer science in California, and then I "made a career" in the ICT (information and communication technology) industry, climbing the ladder, and adding three beautiful, now grown-up children to humankind with my wife.

My priority now, my absolute priority, is the fight for the climate emergency, without forgetting my grandson (fifteen months old), of whom I am completely gaga. Climate change is serious, I don't want my mother, my grandson, my relatives to die prematurely during a forty-degree heat wave. But we are driving at 100 km/h into the wall, and it is a hundred metres away (for you Americans, that’s driving at about 60 mph towards a wall 300 feet in front of us). So I act, I really dedicate myself to it.

Music gives me strength, intense emotions and balance, and has done so since I was a teenager. The list of influences would be very long, but without thinking I would say Magma, Crimson, Glass, Stravinsky, Can, Schulze, Floyd, Genesis, Zeppelin, Portishead, Gainsbarre, ah I'm told that I'm running out of time. But I won't be prevented from mentioning Sequentia Legenda, which bathes me almost daily. Thank you to La Planète Bleue / the Blue Planet radio show (one broadcast in 2015)... And thank you to Laurent for enriching the Berlin School in this way, even now.

 

Stéphane Rousset: The place that inspires you?

Sequentia Legenda: For me, nature is the place of all inspirations, allowing me to develop my ideas, to vivify my creativity. Walks amid Mother Nature give me happiness, relaxation and a chance to recharge my batteries. It is a pleasure to hear the rustling of leaves in the wind, to listen to the many birdsongs, to be able to soak up the soothing murmur of a stream, or simply to revel in the timeless purity of silence.

I also like to regenerate and find inspiration in trees and rocks. For example, one of my favourite places is the Taennchel massif, a highly vibratory place not far from my home.

Nature is an invaluable source of kindness and creativity.

Stéphane Rousset: La Planète Bleue (The Blue Planet)?

Sequentia Legenda: La Planète Bleue is an interesting radio programme that is broadcast all over the world and which, in my opinion, is worth a visit. For many years, it has been feeding listeners with a rich and wide range of music, as well as with carefully selected articles. Yves Blanc selects and writes the content of his programmes with great care to offer a qualitative and constantly evolving programme.

As far as my music is concerned, it has been played regularly on this programme, notably at the conclusion of the 999th broadcast with SOLITUDES LUNAIRES (Lunar Solitudes), for which I am infinitely grateful. Yves Blanc also presented a preview of the double album EXTENDED (http://sequentia-legenda.blogspot.com/2017/04/yves-blanc-presente-extended-dans-son.html). Moreover, being present on the collector's CD "La Planète Bleue Volume 9" (The Blue Planet, volume 9) with my track VIBRATIONS was a great consecration for me. It was a pleasure to meet Yves and to discuss with him about music of course, but also about many other subjects.

I take this opportunity to share an article from the luminous pen of Yves Blanc: "Almost all soaring music is made up of three elements: synth layers, sequencer loops... and solos... often very boring, I must admit. Sequentia Legenda has the intelligence and sensitivity to build its music - strictly instrumental - on the first two elements only: the layers and the loops. In his compositions, no dripping solo, no boring solo, but layers of great sophistication, in constant evolution, and loops, also in permanent evolution, sometimes of great complexity, even if they always have the appearance of the obvious."

https://laplanetebleue.com/fr/recherche?q=sequentia+legenda

Stéphane Rousset: Wahnfried or Crystal Lake?

Sequentia Legenda: Without any hesitation: Crystal Lake!
Crystal Lake really means a lot to me. This timeless track by Klaus Schulze was a real revelation, I fell in love with the Berlin School. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my late mother, who allowed me to discover this mythical album of Klaus Schulze, "Mirage". I was about fifteen years old at that time, and I had also discovered new and fascinating instruments for me: synthesizers and sequencers.

I can't count the number of times I have been lifted by the unique and intoxicating atmosphere of Crystal Lake, to experience extraordinary and imaginary journeys. Even today, I still enjoy this universe and I always discover new subtleties. I never tire of it, it is timeless, my whole being is transformed when I listen to it. Looking back, I can say that in addition to the instrumental textures and other sumptuous sonic facets, it was the high precision work of the sequences that fascinated me. The loops generated by the sequencers simply mesmerised me!

And if I were to leave one day for a desert island or another planet and could only take one album with me, it would be Mirage, without any hesitation.

I would like to take this opportunity to share an article that appeared on my Blog: https://sequentia-legenda.blogspot.com/2017/06/mirage-my-musical-love-at-first-sight.html

I thank Stéphane for this beautiful exchange.

Trailer of the next musical opus of Sequentia Legenda :
ALCYONE

 ALCYONE Sequentia Legenda - Berlin School music

🙏☀️🙏 ALCYONE is the expression of my Heart and my Soul, it is a sharing from Heart to Heart. I hope that this opus will nourish your dreams, your hopes and will allow you to travel and rise towards a celestial world bathed in a soft and radiant light. This opus is composed of 3 tracks tuned to 432 Hz (Around the Great Central Sun, The Ring of Golden Light, Bon Voyage) plus a bonus (Love feeds Love).

Available from 12 May 2023 in CD pressing and in dematerialized version.

– Love Feeds Love –