Cosmos IX By David De Michele

 

Cosmos IX

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.