By
David De Michele
Written by
Steve Sheppard
I feel I have been on a long deep space mission with David De Michele over the past few
years, ever since the launch date for me as the writer of these reviews for
this series back in 2022, when we broke orbit and left for a region of the
universe as of yet untouched by humanity, maybe that’s a good thing! However David De Michele is fast becoming
iconic with regard to his space music styled albums, and thus, this is your
captain speaking once more, as we head further and deeper than ever, with this
his latest offering Cosmos IX, so full ahead helm, warp one, engage!
The part of space travel that would be amazingly exciting is First Contact, meeting an alien species
for the first time would be mind-blowing, here De Michele gifts us a truly
powerful opus that illustrates that nervous and apprehensive moment perfectly,
the repeating keyboard motif and the incredibly powerful female vocalisations,
set the scene of that first encounter with ease.
Cosmos IX is a 10 track album of superior and
classy space based music, within its galactic confines one will find a solar
system of many wonders, like the moving and deep waters of the track Nova, a soft pastiche of keyboards
starts our journey, leading into a more ethereal styled opus, whilst In the Silence breathes a fresh look at
proceedings, with some attractive piano and keyboard work from the artist, ones
that drift on the solar waves of the composition, with the gentle ease of
expectancy hanging in the air like a ripe orange.
This next piece is one of the cleverest from the release and
called Parallels, this
multi-dimensional composition seems to have something going on in all parts of
its structures at its inception, then a mysterious build and progression into a
region as of yet undiscovered, gifts me the musical interpretation for perhaps
a portal to the mirror universe!
We are at the half way juncture of this splendid album from David De Michele, and once more we have
travelled long, wide and far with him, now as we tread with caution into this
new quadrant we come across a Vangelis
styled creation called Moving Beyond, however when the female vocal hits,
it is like we have literally been pulled through a wormhole itself.
Epic is our next star fix, the gentle
waves of synths transport us to a place of both power and excitement, a fresh
new region of space is found, this explorative arrangement has a steady
swirling sense of mystery and enticement located within its tonal delights, and
I adored the ethereal vocals here, almost a Gregorian space chant at times, but
the soft synths remind me of when a ship arrives in a new system in a space
show, movie directors listen up!
This next track is amazingly vast and quite breath-taking, I
could almost visualise a Star Trek
segment after exiting a Borg conduit and saying “Seven, where the hell are we?”
She would of course reply quite calmly “M87 Captain, it is about 16.4 million
parsecs (53 million light-years) from Earth and is the second-brightest galaxy
within the northern Virgo Cluster”. M87 is one of those pieces that
reverberates deep within you as it is played; it has an onward energy, one that
gives the feeling of a steady motion, but also a track that carries some power
and intensity with it too, this is another movie standard piece that needs to
be taken seriously.
The deep space eddies and currents now take our musical ship
in deeper, where we find the spectral and mystical arrangement of Timeline. There is something very deep
and reflective about this offering that I found very palpable and compelling,
the presentation by Michele is fluent and creatively passionate.
We have arrived at the penultimate offering from the album
and this gem is called Destined.
There is a tempo here that is undeniable, there is a sense that business has
picked up and a decision will have to be made, the deep almost guttural
vocalisation within this track manifests a sense of realisation, the soft
symphonic synth pads here are utterly transcendent.
In Greek mythology, Andromeda
is the daughter of Cepheus, the king
of Aethiopia, and his wife, Cassiopeia. In this concluding creation David De Michele delivers in my view
one of his best ever creations, and literally manifests one of the classiest
compositions he has ever composed, the elevated energetic timbre on the track Andromeda is simply breath taking, and
of course one has to say without doubt, easily the best way with which to leave
the album.
Cosmos IX by David De Michele is the latest album in the series of releases of
that name and in my view his best thus far, this is typical De Michele
territory, but with an edge that makes it truly magnificent, within this
release the listener will be taken on a journey to the out regions of space,
and will never want to return, the album has intrigue, mystery, passion, power
and intensity, this is one album you simply cannot miss out on.