Info:
1)
“Immortal Hours and Passion Flowers”
(Quaeschning/Heidemann)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer, Cymbals, Djembe, Xylophon, Electric-Guitar
Juergen Heidemann : Sound-Stones, Stones, Rainstick
Vincent Nowak : Cajon, Shaker
Tommy Betzler : Gong
“The Immortal Hour”
(by Rachel Annand Taylor)

Still as great waters lying in the West,
So is my spirit still.
I lay my folded hands within Thy breast,
My will within Thy will.
O Fortune, idle pedlar, pass me by.
O Death, keep far from me who cannot die.
The passion-flowers are lacing oer the sill
Of my low door.-As dews their sweetness fill,
So do I rest in Thee.
It is mine hour. Let none set foot therein.
It is mine hour unflawed of pain or sin.
Tis laid and steeped in silence, till it be
A solemn dazzling crystal, to outlast
And storm the eyes of poets when long-past
Is all the changing dream of Thee and Me.

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2)
„The Rose and the Cross
(Quaeschning)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer, Djembe, Electric-Guitar, Vocals, Cymbals
Juergen Heidemann : Soundstone, Stones
Kai Hanuschka : Cymbals
Nadine Gomez : Violin
Vanessa O : Cello
“The Rose and the Cross”
(by Aleister Crowley)

Oou of the seething cauldron of my woes,
Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung;
Where charmèd music gathered from my tongue,
And where I chained strange archipelagoes
Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows
A curious bitumen; where among
The glowing medley moved the tune unsung
Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic Rose.

Its myriad petals of divided light;
Its leaves of the most radiant emerald;
Its heart of fire like rubies. At the sight
I lifted up my heart to God and called:
How shall I pluck this dream of my desire?
And lo! there shaped itself the Cross of Fire!

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3)
„Seperate Existence
(Beator)
Sascha Beator : Synthesizer
Kai Hanuschka : Cajon, Darbuka
David See : Electric-Mandolin
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer
“Humanitad”
(by Oscar Wilde)

TO make the Body and the Spirit one
With all right things, till no thing live in vain
From morn to noon, but in sweet unison
With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain
The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned,
Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,

Mark with serene impartiality
The strife of things, and yet be comforted,
Knowing that by the chain causality
All separate existences are wed
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance
Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance

Of Life in most august omnipresence,
Through which the rational intellect would find
In passion its expression, and mere sense,
Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,
And being joined with it in harmony
More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,

Strike from their several tones one octave chord
Whose cadence being measureless would fly
Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord
Return refreshed with its new empery
And more exultant power,-this indeed
Could we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect creed.

O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!
O chalice of all common miseries!
Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne
An agony of endless centuries,
And we were vain and ignorant nor knew
That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew.

Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,
The night that covers and the lights that fade,
The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.

Is this the end of all that primal force
Which, in its changes being still the same,
From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,
Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,
Till the suns met in heaven and began
Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man!

Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though
The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain,
Loosen the nails-we shall come down I know,
Stanch the red wounds-we shall be whole again,
No need have we of hyssop-laden rod,
That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is God.

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4)
„Speaking Stillness in the Rose-Flushed-Snow
(Quaeschning/Beator)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer, Electric-Guitar, Electric-Kazzoo
Sascha Beator : Synthesizer
Kai Hanuschka : Drums
Vincent Nowak : Drums
Djirre : Electric-Guitar
Stephen Mortimer : Acoustic-Guitar
Thorsten Spiller : Acoustic-Guitar
“The Creed of My Heart”
(by Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes)

A FLAME in my heart is kindled by the might of the morns pure breath;
A passion beyond all passion; a faith that eclipses faith;
A joy that is more than gladness; a hope that outsoars desire;
A love that consumes and quickens; a soul-transfiguring fire.
My life is possessed and mastered: my heart is inspired and filled.
All other visions have faded: all other voices are stilled.
My doubts are vainer than shadows: my fears are idler than dreams:
They vanish like breaking bubbles, those old soul-torturing themes.

The riddles of life are cancelled, the problems that bred despair:
I cannot guess them or solve them, but I know that they are not there.
They are past, they are all forgotten, the breeze has blown them away;
For lifes inscrutable meaning is clear as the dawn of day.
It is there-the secret of Nature-there in the mornings glow;
There in the speaking stillness; there in the rose-flushed snow.
It is here in the joy and rapture; here in my pulsing breast:
I feel what has neer been spoken: I know what has neer been guessed.

The rose-lit clouds of morning; the sun-kissed mountain heights;
The orient streaks and flushes; the mingling shadows and lights;
The flow of the lonely river; the voice of its distant stream;
The mists that rise from the meadows, lit up by the suns first beam;-
They mingle and melt as I watch them; melt and mingle and die.
The land is one with the water: the earth is one with the sky.
The parts are as parts no longer: Nature is All and One:
Her life is achieved, completed: her days of waiting are done

I breathe the breath of the morning. I am one with the one World-Soul.
I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living Whole.
I am more than self: I am selfless: I am more than self: I am I.
I have found the springs of my being in the flush of the eastern sky.
I-the true self, the spirit, the self that is born of death-
I have found the flame of my being in the morns ambrosial breath.
I lose my life for a season: I lose it beyond recall:
But I find it renewed, rekindled, in the life of the One, the All.
I look not forward or backward: the abysses of time are nought.
From pole to pole of the heavens I pass in a flash of thought.
I clasp the world to my bosom: I feel its pulse in my breast,-
The pulse of measureless motion, the pulse of fathomless rest.
Is it motion or rest that thrills me? Is it lightning or moonlit peace?
Am I freer than waves of ether, or prisoned beyond release?
I know not; but through my spirit, within me, around, above,
The world-wide river is streaming, the river of life and love.
Silent, serene, eternal, passionless, perfect, pure;-
I may not measure its windings, but I know that its aim is sure.
In its purity seethes all passion: in its silence resounds all song:
Its strength is builded of weakness: its right is woven of wrong.
I am borne afar on its bosom; yet its source and its goal are mine,
From the sacred springs of Creation to the ocean of love Divine.
I have ceased to think or to reason: there is nothing to ponder or prove:
I hope, I believe no longer: I am lost in a dream of love.

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„Beatific Vision
(Quaeschning)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Piano, Synthesizer, Electric-Guitar, Glockenspiel, Memotron
Kai Hanuschka : Cajon
Tommy Betzler : Gong
“The Beatific Vision”
(by Frederick William Orde Ward)

BETWIXT the dawning and the day it came
Upon me like a spell,
While tolled a distant bell,
A wondrous vision but without a name
In pomp of shining mist and shadowed flame,
Exceeding terrible;
Before me seemed to open awful Space,
And sheeted tower and spire
With forms of shrouded tire
Arose and beckoned with unearthly grace,
I felt a Presence though I saw no face
But the dark rolling fire.

And then a Voice as sweet and soft as tears
But yet of gladness part,
Thrilled through my inmost heart,
Which told the secret of the solemn years
And swept away the clouds of gloomy fears,
The riddles raised by art;
Till all my soul was bathed with trembling joy
And lost in dreadful bliss,
As at Gods very kiss,
While the earth shrivelled up its broken toy,
And like a rose the heavens no longer coy
Laid bare their blue abyss.

The giant wheels and all the hidden springs
Of this most beauteous globe,
Which man may never probe,
Burst on me with a blaze of angel wings
And each bright orb that like a diamond clings
To the veiled Fathers robe:
I saw with vision that was more than sight,
The levers and the laws
That fashion stars as straws
And link with perfect loveliness of right,
In the pure duty that is pure delight
And to one Center draws.

I knew with sudden insight all was best,
The passion and the pain,
The searching that seem vain
But lead if by dim blood-stained steps to Rest.
And only are the beatings of Gods Breast
Beneath the iron chain;
I knew each work was blessèd in its place,
The eagle and the dove,
While Nature was the glove
Of that dear Hand which everywhere we trace,
I felt a Presence though I saw no face,
And it was boundless Love.

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„Fiery Fountain of the Stars
(Beator)
Sascha Beator : Synthesizer, Electric-Guitar
Kai Hanuschka : Cajon, Darbuka
David See : Electric-Mandolin
Djirre : Electric-Guitar
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Electric-Guitar
“Krishna”
(by George William Russell)

I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play,””
Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway.
The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn,
And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn.
I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade,
And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed.
I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim
To be the purest of the pure, thrice holy, stainless, without blame.
I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk a ruddy glare,
And saw the King of Kings outcast reel brawling through the starlit air.
And yet He is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient wisdom tells,
And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells.
I saw the King of Kings again, a thing to shudder at and fear,
A form so darkened and so marred that childhood fled if it drew near.
And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise,
That Beauty of the King which dawns upon the seers enraptured eyes.
I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold,
And yet He is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold,
The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim,
And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him.
I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust
With all his fires of morning still, the beauty, bravery, and lust.
And yet He is the life within the Ever-living Living Ones,
The ancient with eternal youth, the cradle of the infant suns,
The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all
The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall.

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„Passion of Regret
(Quaeschning)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Harmophon, Piano, Synthesizer, Electric-Guitar, Glockenspiel, Drums,
Memotron, Djembe, Darbuka
Kai Hanuschka : Drums, Cajon, Djembe
Vincent Nowak : Drums
Djirre : Electric-Guitar
Tommy Betzler : Gong, Drums
The Disciples
(by Harriet Eleanor Hamilton-King)

WE suffer. Why we suffer,-that is hid
With Gods foreknowledge in the clouds of Heaven.
The first book written sends that human cry
Out of the clear Chaldean pasture-lands
Down forty centuries; and no answer yet
Is found, nor will be found, while yet we live
In limitations of Humanity.
But yet one thought has often stayed by me
In the night-watches, which has brought at least
The patience for the hour, and made the pain
No more a burden which I groaned to leave,
But something precious which I feared to lose.
-How shall I show it, but by parables?

The sculptor, with his Psyches wings half-hewn
May close his eyes in weariness, and wake
To meet the white cold clay of his ideal
Flushed into beating life, and singing down
The ways of Paradise. The husbandman
May leave the golden fruitage of his groves
Ungarnered, and upon the Tree of Life
Will find a richer harvest waiting him.
The soldier dying thinks upon his bride,
And knows his arms shall never clasp her more,
Until he first the face of his unborn child
Behold in heaven: for each and all of life,
In every phase of action, love, and joy,
There is fulfilment only otherwhere.-

But if, impatient, thou let slip thy cross,
Thou wilt not find it in this world again,
Nor in another; here, and here alone
Is given thee to suffer for Gods sake.
In other worlds we shall more perfectly
Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him,
Grow near and nearer Him with all delight;
But then we shall not any more be called
To suffer, which is our appointment here.
Canst thou not suffer then one hour,-or two?
If He should call thee from thy cross to-day,
Saying, It is finished!-that hard cross of thine
From which thou prayest for deliverance,
Thinkest thou not some passion of regret
Would overcome thee? Thou wouldst say, So soon?
Let me go back, and suffer yet awhile
More patiently;-I have not yet praised God.
And He might answer to thee,-Never more.
All pain is done with. Whensoeer it comes,
That summons that we look for, it will seem
Soon, yea too soon. Let us take heed in time
That God may now be glorified in us;
And while we suffer, let us set our souls
To suffer perfectly: since this alone,
The suffering, which is this worlds special grace,
May here be perfected and left behind.

-But in obedience and humility;-
Waiting on Gods hand, not forestalling it.
Seek not to snatch presumptuously the palm
By self-election; poison not thy wine
With bitter herbs if He has made it sweet;
Nor rob Gods treasuries because the key
Is easy to be turned by mortal hands.
The gifts of birth, death, genius, suffering,
Are all for His hand only to bestow.
Receive thy portion, and be satisfied.
Who crowns himself a king is not the more
Royal; nor he who mars himself with stripes
The more partaker of the Cross of Christ.

But if Himself He come to thee, and stand
Beside thee, gazing down on thee with eyes
That smile, and suffer; that will smite thy heart,
With their own pity, to a passionate peace;
And reach to thee Himself the Holy Cup
(With all its wreathen stems of passion-flowers
And quivering sparkles of the ruby stars),
Pallid and royal, saying Drink with Me
Wilt thou refuse? Nay, not for Paradise!
The pale brow will compel thee, the pure hands
Will minister unto thee; thou shalt take
Of that communion through the solemn depths
Of the dark waters of thine agony,
With heart that praises Him, that yearns to Him
The closer through that hour. Hold fast His hand,
Though the nails pierce thine too! take only care
Lest one drop of the sacramental wine
Be spilled, of that which ever shall unite
Thee, soul and body to thy living Lord!

Therefore gird up thyself, and come, to stand
Unflinching under the unfaltering hand,
That waits to prove thee to the uttermost.
It were not hard to suffer by His hand,
If thou couldst see His face;-but in the dark!
That is the one last trial:-be it so.
Christ was forsaken, so must thou be too:
How couldst thou suffer but in seeming, else?
Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand,
Only the cruel crushing of the feet,
When through the bitter night the Lord comes down
To tread the winepress.-Not by sight, but faith,
Endure, endure,-be faithful to the end!

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8)
„Compass Me
(Quaeschning)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer, Kora, Vocals, Koto
Kai Hanuschka : Cajon, Djembe
Vincent Nowak : Didgeridoo
Djirre : Electric-Guitar
Juergen Heidemann : Soundstone, Vocals, Ocean-Drum
Tommy Betzler : Gong
“Communion”
(by John Bannister Tabb)

ONCE when my heart was passion-free
To learn of things divine,
The soul of nature suddenly
Outpoured itself in mine.

I held the secrets of the deep,
And of the heavens above;
I knew the harmonies of sleep,
The mysteries of love.

And for a moments interval
The earth, the sky, the sea-
My soul encompassed, each and all,
As now they compass me.

To one in all, to all in one-
Since Love the work began-
Lifes ever widening circles run,
Revealing God and man.

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9)
„Continuous Aspiration
(Quaeschning)
Thorsten „Q Quaeschning : Synthesizer, Drums
Kai Hanuschka : Drums
Djirre : Electric-Guitar
The Souls Travelling
(by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

GOD, God!
With a childs voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly-
God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
As ours, oer many a tear!
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
Two little tears suffice to cover all:
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer
Expiring in the woods-that care for none
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath
We name our souls, self-spoilt!-by that strong passion
Which paled Thee once with sighs,-by that strong death
Which made Thee once unbreathing-from the wrack
Themselves have called around them, call them back,
Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
For here, O Lord,
For here they travel vainly,-vainly pass
From city-pavement to untrodden sward,
Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass
Cold with the earths last dew. Yea, very vain
The greatest speed of all these souls of men
Unless they travel upward to the throne
Where sittest THOU, the satisfying ONE,
With help for sins and holy perfectings
For all requirements-while the archangel, raising
Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,
Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.

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LineUp:
Thorsten “Q” Quaeschning
Synthesizer, Kora, Koto, Vocals, Glockenspiel, Piano, Drums, Memotron, Organ, Electric-Guitar, Lapsteel-Guitar, Electric-Kazzoo, Harmophon, Darbuka, Djembe, Ebow-Guitar, Vocoder, Xylophon

Sascha Beator
Synthesizer

Kai Hanuschka
Drums, Darbuka, Djembe, Cajon

Vincent Nowak
Drums, Didgeridoo, Darbuka, Djembe, Shaker, Cajon

Djirre
Electric-Guitar, Acoustic-Guitar, Electric-Mandolin

Juergen Heidemann
Sound-Stones, Stones, Vocals, Rainstick

David See
Electric-Mandolin, Electric-Guitar

Stephen Mortimer
Acoustic-Guitar, Electric-Guitar

Thorsten Spiller
Acoustic-Guitar

Tommy Betzler
Drums, Gongs, Shaker, Djembe, Darbuka

Nadine Gomez
Violin

Vanessa O.
Cello
Picture Palace Music (PPM) is a band around Thorsten Quaeschning (“Q”). Thorsten has been keyboardplayer in Tangerine Dream since 2005 and co-composer of albums “Springtime In Nagasaki”, “Madcap’s Flaming Duty” and Jeanne D’Arc”. The main idea of the group is to reproduce the musical dynamic and experiments of old live accompaniment for silent movies and to give them a modern soundtrack with nowadays technical options. This shows that the old silent movies are not moldy: they are timeless and fascinating! The music is inspired by more than eighty years old silent movies.

Now, Quaeschning and his many musical friends (live, the band is sometimes expanded up to ten men, amongst them four guitarplayers and three drummers!) have created “Indulge The Passion”. The subtitle is “Music for 7-word-influences & monetary capitals”. Again, Thorsten’s main contributor is synthesist Sascha Beator, who had (co-)written many of the songs on the album. The music on the album is based on famous poetry. The music of PPM is often called “hard”. Maybe it is better to call it a more progressive or rockversion of Tangerine Dream. This can already be heard on the openingtrack “Immortal Hours And Passion Flowers” that clearly could have come from one of the recent records of TD because of the thrusting drums and melodically tunes. Talking about TD: “The Rose And The Cross”, with it’s classical themes, could have been filmmusic. This is something TD has specialized in for many years (that was before Thorsten joined). “Seperate Existence” has Oscar Wilde’s “Humaniad” as a source of inspiration. “Speaking Stillness In The Rose-Flushed-Snow” has a really excellent main melody. If TD had used the track, this could be one of the highlights of their recent career. In the romantic “Beatific Vision” the melancholically sounds of the Memotron have a prominent place. “Fiery Fountain Of The Stars”, again, is almost symphonic rock. In “Passion Of Regret” Thorsten plays a sound that has traces of an accordion. This proves the versatility of PPM. “Continuous Aspiration” is powering electronic rock.

PPM creates the perfect mixture between electronic music and rock. Electronic rock, so to say. Fans of the “rocky” side of Tangerine Dream would love it but it is also highly recommendable to lovers of progressive rock.

2012. Paul Rijkens

Review:

GutsofDarkness & Synth&sequrences :

In its quest for an absolute originality Picture Palace Music stigmatizes our incredulity by works of a surprising sensitivity beats up by furious surge of violence. Ambiguity? Completely! Indulge the Passion is a perplexed work which leaves a strange imprint of fascination after the first listening. And, according to the numerous instruments listed for its making, every additional listening dissipates the doubt and roots the perception that we are in front of a great and surprising work with ambivalent structures, if not schizophrenic, where the sweetness is next to violence and the romance get lost in its reflection. Indulge the Passion is another wonderful work which will survive to this fascinating group which is weaved in the meanders of a world of black and white and which makes me say that Picture Palace Music matures like souls in turmoil.

Lugubrious synth waves and other ones glimmering overlap to pave the way to the sober percussions of “Immortal Hours and Passion Flowers” which open the timid rhythm of Indulge the Passion. Blades of synth cry over this introductory tempo to which are adding some percussions which resound as some hollow wood, leading this rhythm towards a heavy and resounding bass line. And this rhythm grows heavy. Circumspect it collapses under these heavy bass notes and these percussions which ring as glass wood, keeping a melodic approach that synth laments are wrapping of an intriguing aura of mystery. Keyboard chords draw a fine harmony which fades in this maze of percussions while “Immortal Hours and Passion Flowers” goes into a brief atmospheric passage where crystalline arpeggios and silk choirs are floating in a black hole that some fine percussions redirects towards its heavy tempo of origin. Ambiguity? Absolutely! The 9 titles which feed the indomitability of Indulge the Passion offer superb structures where the passion is devoured at knocks of turmoil with rhythms and melodies which bicker in ambiances sometimes hard rock and sometimes oniric. As a rose growing in the garden of darkness, “The Rose and the Cross” is a pure jewel of sensitivity. It’s a wonderful moment which tears the soul with its strings of violins and cellos crying over sequences / percussions running as wavelets caught in dead water. The rhythm is slow, even statics, with percussions in the Amerindian clanic forms which collect its tears of violins / cellos of which the parameters of sensitivity increase in a latent crescendo structured to tear away tears of the heart. Outstanding and too heart-rending! “Separate Existence” shakes our emotional torpor with strikes of percussions rolling in an infernal spiral. The percussions fall very hard on a tempo of which the harsh and unbridled rotations drag harmonious chords and supernatural breaths. These voices get lost in synths and guitars which un ite their lamentations to form some enthralling melodies both spectral and virginal. In its rhythmic pattern which seems to climb an eternal slope, “Speaking Stillness in the Rose-Flushed-Snow” grave in our ears with its heavy percussions and its flickering sequences. It’s a fascinating and lively electronic ballad to miles tones lying on a bubbling bed of sequences and percussions which shape a heavy but harmonious rhythm eroded by guitars, synth and kazzoo electric which unite their stamps to weave some superhuman laments. It’s the white and the black put in music. “Bealific Vision” is another great melody. It’s a real pearl of tenderness and melancholy with guitars which roar on the back of the fragility of a piano of which the notes embroider the memoirs of a delicate contemplative melody which cries in the fog.
Arpeggios waddling with innocence draw the charming introductory melody of “Fiery Fountain of the Stars” which collapses in a furious whirlwind activated by a good bass line, syncopated sequences and strong percussions. Heavy and edgy, as melodious and ethereal, “Fiery Fountain of the Stars” navigates between tranquility and fury with a surprising resemblance with Tangerine Dream. The somber and lugubrious breezes of the Harmophone introduce the solemn intro of “Passion of Regret” which stumbles and melts into a suave and slow tempo to the scents of Pink Floyd on US and Them. The synth blows its airs of romances of a dark sensuality on a bed of sparkling arpeggios which glitter such as droplets in suspension. The more we move forward and the more it becomes heavy. And, a little after the 6th minute, the percussions fall. They accelerate an evanescent rhythmic which unfolds its wrath with heavy soloing riffs and tremulous sequences before disappearing just like that into floating ambiences where some fragile piano notes roam in abysses filled by protesting spirits whom will be swept by a furious apocalyptic ride. “Compass Me” is another wonderful title. Its intro is swept by the winds of a didgeridoo which blow in a plain filled by a ghostly aura of spectres from deserts. Notes of an acoustic guitar are strolling there, looking for a melody to be lived within, whereas the percussions pierce the horizon to mold a mesmerizing dramatic approach. And it’s through these percussions, this guitar carried by the ochred winds of a didge and the wandering breaths of lost souls that “Compass Me” espouses the fascinating crescendo of a heavy but floating rhythm, like a slow ride in hostile lands where the sands are glittering such as some bubbles bursting under a blazing sun. Chords of an electric piano roam in the grooves of their resonances, displaying the somber comfort of “Continuous Aspiration” which breathes by knocks of cymbals. A sequence emerges. Its keys flicker eagerly, dragging the cymbals in this spasmodic linear dance towards the heavy knockings of a drum which hammers the heavy and incisive rhythm of “Continuous Aspiration”. And a feminine voice roars its sensuality on a rhythm of lead, concluding another intense musical journey in the theatrical entrails of a beast to multiple artistic resources.

It’s in the broth of pure black and heavy electronic rock that Indulge the Passion assails our senses. Once again the gang of Thorsten “Q” Quaeschning disconcerts with a powerful album to the antipodes of a passion eaten up by remorses. Violent and soft, romantic and prosaic; the universe of Indulge the Passion navigates in full storm, caressing our fantasies and ignoring their rules to sink into the most absolute black. It’s a puzzling and fascinating opus which is in the lineage of Picture Palace Music’s big works; by far the most creative band that has emerged in the last decade.

2012. Sylvain Lupari / GutsofDarkness & Synth&sequrences