Renaud Joly highlights Sequentia Legenda's music

"In summary, I would say that Sequentia Legenda's music
represents a fabulous regenerative capacity that allows 
me to find a new breath despite the challenges I face."
Renaud Joly

Thanks to Renaud Joly for this photo

I WOULD SAY THAT SEQUENTIA LEGENDA'S MUSIC
represents a fabulous regenerative capacity

Sequentia Legenda: What does Sequentia Legenda's music represent for you?

Renaud Joly: It represents a lot to me. Even though I really enjoy my work, it remains a job for a company with its profitability rules that generate a certain amount of stress. Furthermore, my personal life involves challenges related to a rare genetic disease that affects a loved one, progressively impacting their physical abilities. This situation adds significant stress and pressure to my life. One of the ways that allows me to maintain hope and joy in life is to embark on a small journey almost every day by listening to Sequentia Legenda's music. Whether it's after lunch or in the evening before sleeping, I choose a track and it allows me to completely escape, to go somewhere else. In summary, I would say that Sequentia Legenda's music represents a fabulous regenerative capacity that allows me to find a new breath despite the challenges I face.


Sequentia Legenda: What are your feelings regarding ALCYONE?

Renaud Joly: In "ALCYONE," I fully feel that constant regenerative capacity that can be found in almost all of Sequentia Legenda's creations. When listening to this album, I have the sensation of hearing music in three dimensions. The sequences overlap, intertwine, offering a certain depth to the entire album. I find the sound particularly well-crafted, with finesse, precision, and melody. Each of the tracks paints different landscapes for me.

For example, when listening to "AROUND THE GREAT CENTRAL SUN", I feel like I'm flying or soaring through spaces. At certain moments, the crystalline notes allow me to imagine various landscapes or creatures.

"THE RING OF GOLDEN LIGHT", evokes space, stars, a focus on the future and hope. It gives me a revitalizing and energetic sensation.

With "BON VOYAGE", I go diving (I actually enjoy scuba diving). This piece is very colorful in my eyes, reminiscent of corals.

"LOVE FEEDS LOVE", although short (it leaves us wanting more, I am waiting for an extended version like the one you did with "THE RETURN"), is both nostalgic, a look at the past and the passing of time, but also carries hope, mystery, dreams, an invitation to travel.

 

BLUE DREAM TO ALCYONE
is a true invitation for me to explore
new musical dimensions

Sequentia Legenda: As someone who has almost all of my discography, how do you perceive the evolution of my music from BLUE DREAM to ALCYONE?

Renaud Joly:  For me, I perceive a greater depth of sound. As the albums progress, the sequences become more complex, more refined. I sense the emergence of new elements, surprises that arise, crystalline notes. The sounds become more enjoyable to listen to; they speak to me much more than on the early records. I find greater complexity in the overall composition. In the new tracks, I also feel a multiplication of sequences, the loops become more subtle and numerous. The sounds become more spatial, more crystalline. All of this creates an immersive and captivating musical experience that transports me to unexplored sonic horizons.

In summary, the evolution of your creations is a true invitation for me to explore new musical dimensions and dive into a constantly expanding sound universe, embarking on a journey.

CREATIVE IDEAS
express themselves to me spontaneously
like synchronicities

Renaud Joly: In general, how do you come up with creative ideas for your compositions?

Sequentia Legenda: It's a fascinating subject, and one that probably varies from one artist to another. As far as I'm concerned, inspiration and creativity express themselves to me spontaneously like synchronicities, like an attractive force, like real guidance, support and enlightenment. In fact, I don't choose, I let this divine presence come to me, so to speak. Then elements such as images and texts come along to complete this exciting phase of expansion. Not forgetting the mystical and spiritual facets that play a major role. It's magical, a kind of joyful drunkenness, an artistic firework display. I never know where I'm going in advance, but I move forward with serenity and the ideas keep coming to me and influencing my compositional work.

Renaud Joly: What emotions do you feel when you listen to your creations again?

Sequentia Legenda: I usually feel a certain nostalgia when I listen to music again. It's a rediscovery, with memories and emotions flooding back, as well as musical and/or technical challenges. Each creation is a unique experience in itself, a story, an atmosphere, an experience linked to a very specific moment in my life. Listening to my albums again is a good time for a new exploration, sometimes leading me towards new ideas and new experiments. I revisit certain aspects that can sometimes fuel my inspiration.

Renaud Joly: Apart from Klaus Schulze, of course, what other major sources have influenced you?

Sequentia Legenda: The legendary group Tangerine Dream was the other major source of inspiration after Klaus Schulze. Occasionally, I found the work of Kraftwerk (Trans Europe Express in particular) interesting and in a more melodic style Vangelis (the soundtrack to Blade Runner is a reference). Then there was Jean-Michel Jarre in his early days, with his interesting atmospheres. On a completely different note, classical and symphonic music also inspire me.

ALCYONE'S MISSION IS TO BE AN INVITATION
to come into harmony with the Light

Renaud Joly: For me, each of your albums is both an internal and external journey. With Alcyone, what kind of journey would you like the listener to take, and what kind of journey has this album been for you?

Sequentia Legenda: Thank you very much for your beautiful testimony.

ALCYONE's mission is to be an invitation to come into harmony with the Light, to revisit ourselves, to go deep within ourselves, to refocus, to let go by following our heart, so that we can embark on an initiatory journey guided by a gentle and benevolent vibration. It's the illumination of an energy that is the source of life, that animates our feelings and our thoughts, for an elevation towards a serene, luminous world bathed in unconditional love.

For me, ALCYONE is all this, it's much more than just music, it's a heart-to-heart sharing, a communion, a prayer dedicated to the Light.


Presentation of Renaud Joly
Let me introduce myself, my name is Renaud, I am of Swiss origin and have been living in Asia in Singapore since 2005. I followed my Singaporean wife, whom I met in Geneva through my work. By the way, I am passionate about my work as I have been working in the field of perfume development and creation for over 24 years. I have two sons, Yueh, who is 17 years old, and Jie, who is 13 years old.

I have a passion for wines, teas, gastronomy (high-quality, authentic, simple, and traditional foods), and perfumes. I enjoy adventure activities such as mountaineering, ski touring, rock climbing, scuba diving, long-distance running, and triathlons, and I consider myself a world traveler. Thanks to my work, I have had the opportunity to visit many countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, China, India, and see how people live locally.

Finally, on a daily basis, I love reading and, above all, listening to music. It is actually my passion for travel and discovering new universes that led me to discover and greatly appreciate the creations of Sequentia Legenda. The first time I heard the track "Vibrations" while listening to Volume 9 of the "La Planète Bleue" collection, I immediately hooked and sought to discover more pieces. What I loved from the start is the ability to embark on a journey while listening to your creations.

ALCYONE

 

            

ALCYONE under Paul Rijken’s spotlight

"ALCYONE is an album of absolute excellent
Berlin School electronic music
with great sequencing and wonderful soundsculptures.
This music is deep, uplifting and utterly beautiful."
Paul Rijkens (Reviewer for the Dutch magazine iO Pages)

Thanks to Paul Rijkens for this photo

ALCYONE under Paul Rijken’s spotlight
Topic: The album

Paul Rijkens: Alcyone comes out of the Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Aeolus and the wife of Ceyx. She drowned herself in grief when Ceyx died and was transformed into a kingfisher. She was also called Halcyone.

Where did your idea or inspiration come from to use Alcyone as concept for this album?

Sequentia Legenda: In fact, ALCYONE represents the Great Central Sun, which is the theme of my album. A year ago, ALCYONE came to me like a bolt from the blue, and I felt it was essential to express this energy, this elevation emanating from the Great Central Sun, musically. Everyone is free to choose whether or not to embrace it, everyone is free to do their own research and to be discerning, especially in these current times.

For me, it was natural and important to decode and transcribe what I perceived so that I could share and offer the best of myself, both humanly and musically. It was obvious to follow my heart, to share this fabulous energy, this luminous force, this vibrant joy, this infinite hope.

ALCYONE is all that 🙏☀️🙏


Track 1: Around The Great Central Sun
Paul: The sun is all. The sun is everything. Without the sun, earth and the humans cannot survive. It is one of your most joyful compositions, you state in the booklet.

How did you come with the idea of the sun for a track ?

Sequentia Legenda: It was the logical continuation of ALCYONE, I had to highlight this radiant and loving alignment, this incredible creative power literally breathed into me by the Great Central Sun. The more I progressed with this composition, the more the atmosphere of joy grew, much to my delight - it was quite indescribable, in fact. In the end, all I know is that, in my opinion, it's the 'happiest' track in my discography.

Around The Great Central Sun is a message of Peace, Hope and Love, an invitation to gravitate freely in an atmosphere bathed in a divine light and in a creative benevolence. It's a cosmic dance around this fabulous Great Central Sun for a spiritual elevation.


Track 2: The Ring Of Golden Light
Paul: Gold is one of the most precious and valuable materials in the world. Light of gold must also be very precious.

Did you feel surrounded by it when you composed this track?

Sequentia Legenda: I felt surrounded, guided and transcended by a gentle, benevolent emanation that exhaled my creativity – Gratitude🙏

The idea of this composition is to take the listener towards the ring of golden light of an ascending spiral to reach high and beneficial vibrations. The soundscape is a bit like a nebula bathed in a soft, regenerative light. Everyone is free to make up their own mind, to find their own path to exaltation.


Track 3: Bon Voyage
Paul: It means have a good journey or vacation.

Do you consider yourself being on a voyage yourself when you create
your music?

Sequentia Legenda: In a way, yes, there are similarities. When I'm composing, I'm living in my own world, disconnected from our reality so to speak, travelling in my own reality. Time no longer has a hold on me, it's a notion that disappears completely, giving way to a delightful timelessness conducive to creativity. With Bon Voyage, I hope listeners will be able to travel freely and serenely in their own reality.


Track 4: Love Feeds Love
Paul: A for Sequentia Legenda short track. The sequence is fantasic.

What means love to you? How do you make this?

Sequentia Legenda: Thank you Paul for that compliment. It's not really my habit to do short tracks and this is the shortest in my discography. I have to say that this composition literally "invited" itself! In fact, it was planned from the outset that ALCYONE would consist of three tracks, as almost all my albums do. Then, spontaneously, a pressing need arose to rework an initial part. It was a bit like an initiation experience, something that upset the schedule. This composition developed with disconcerting fluidity, as if to persuade me to incorporate this unexpected title. I was really excited by the result, so I decided to add a fourth track, "Love Feeds Love".

In the end, that's how I see Love, in sharing.

 

ALCYONE under Paul Rijken’s spotlight
Topic: Equipment

Paul Rijkens: I am very interested in synthesizers and everything around them. You use mostly software synths. Arturia has created brilliant software emulations of classic synths.

Why have you chosen for this and not for hardware?

Sequentia Legenda: I have to say that when I was between 16 and 21, in my parents' basement, I had a room full of analogue synthesizers, such as the Korg PS 3200, the ARP Odyssey and the Oberheim Two Voices, to name but a few.

Later, with the advent of the MIDI standard, I parted company with these for a large number of digital synths accompanied by Cubase software. Then, like many of us, there were changes in my life and for a while I only kept the Korg DSS1 and the Roland JD800.

Then, a little over ten years ago, I discovered virtual synths and really enjoyed composing with them. Finally, looking back, I've realised that before hardware and everything else: it's the heart that's most important in sharing with listeners. It's my experience, my feelings, of course. I think that my basic knowledge of subtractive synthesis, for example, allows me to approach VST technology with a certain ease and a very precise vision of what I want to highlight. I have to say that overall I'm satisfied.

ALCYONE under Paul Rijken’s spotlight
Topic: Live

Paul Rijkens: I would love to see you play live.

Is there a chance you will perform here in The Netherlands on the E-live of E-day festival?

Sequentia Legenda: Thank you, that's very kind of you. Performing live is something very special, it's a new adventure every time, both technically and on a human level. There's the meeting with the audience, that special contact that makes it a unique moment in itself.

I was lucky enough to be able to play live during 2019, accompanied by German drummer Tommy Betzler (who himself accompanied Klaus Schulze in the mid-80s) in France, Switzerland and Germany.
I have fond memories of that.

As far as future concerts are concerned, it's possible that I'll be able to perform in the Netherlands, and I'd be delighted to do so. Ron Boots and I have been in touch and we'll see what happens. Tommy would also be up for this new adventure on stage. I've got a few imperatives in my life at the moment which mean I can't give you any precise dates. In any case, if it's not possible this year, I hope it'll be next year.

Presentation: My name is Paul Rijkens.

I come from The Netherlands and live in the beautiful ancient inner city of Alkmaar, the city of cheese.

In daily life I work for the Ministry Of Justice. My hobby is music. I love The Beatles and am a volunteer in the Beatles Museum in Alkmaar. My biggest musical love is progressive rock, especially that with (lots of) keyboards in it. I also love electronic music and even tried to make it myself a long time ago. Sine many years I have a weakness for the so-called “Berlin School of electronic music” and that is one of the reasons that I feel so drawn to the music of Sequentia Legenda. Ever since the early eighties, I write about progressive rock and electronic music: I do interviews and write reviews of albums and concerts. In the old days I did that for magazines like Sonic Report, KLEM magazine, E-dition and SI Music Magazine, nowadays I write for the Dutch magazine iO Pages in which I am called the electronic music specialist. 

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

 

 

            

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