Sound Polarities By Tsode

 

Sound Polarities

By

Tsode

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

It must be my lucky day today, the music is flowing fast and free and the beauty of it all is marvellous, this is the second album to review this sunny day in December, and it is a task willingly taken. The musical journey is a release called Sound Polarities and created and composed by Tsode.

The artist has been on my musical radar now for some 8 years or so, but here on Sound Polarities this is truly superior work that is something to be totally proud of, the initial start so much reminds me of early Eno, its gentle reflective sun kissed tones are a fine place to begin and entitled Sound Polarities I.

The more electronic energies are touched within this next offering that also remind me of my old friend Ramsey Gee who used to produce a style of ethnic electronic music for AD records, here on Funny Business Tsode manufactures something similar and fun.

An interesting title is up next and called Kismet, a word describing fate, destiny, by some essence of chance, regardless Tsode has produced something powerful and driving within this composition that reminded me of Robert Miles and his 1998 hit Children, with a slight hint of Jean Michel Jarre into the mix.

We now move to the fluent vocals that can be found on the track entitled A Brighter Love. One must congratulate the artist on this piece, this is a composition that could easily make the Euro song contest, but in all honesty probably is far too good, and one has to also say, this was incredibly well sung as well.

Memories of Ascension Paths started with a soft synth passage and morphed with a slight percussive element into a piece that would have graced any 1990’s Buddha bar or chillout lounge; the floating and easy on the mind vibrations here for me manifest a sublime piece of musical structure that truly needs to be respected.

We move ever onwards towards a piece called The Silk Movement, a leading piano narrative lights our way, whilst a soft pastiche of strings adds texture to the proceedings, it has to be said that this is an extremely artistic creation, I remember Kitaro’s Silk Road, but the tempo here is more thoughtful and most certainly amazingly reflective too.

The intermediate composition is our way finder on the album and of course is Sound Polarities II, but this time the grounding is given to us ever eager listeners with a trance like percussive beat, one that leads us cleverly into the following narrative of Melodies of a Night's Dream feat. Moises Daniel, on a piece that has a sensitive almost lullaby mood to its arrangement.

Venus is our next location, and a vast voyage of musical joy can be found here on this crafted synth based opus, we have a syncopated percussion, a perfect example of electro pop, one that leads the listener on a constant onward motion, perhaps past Venus and into the very space time continuum itself. Where we may find the piano lead track coming next called Sakura, another dance based opus that takes us back to the 90’s.

On the piece Improvisations of Soul there is a tender motif, an almost angelic arrangement that is pristine in nature and texture, whilst on the following musical narrative Time to Run the pace picks up, the energy increases to bring us a piece that had that Jarre feel to it, with even more progressive structures.

One of my favourite subjects to create music about, are the monolithic structures we call mountains, here the artist manifests something quite moving and emotive and entitled The Mountains. We live on a small island that has three main ranges to enjoy, the vastness of the composition relays that epic vista to me with ease.

Interestingly enough the longest offering from the album is called Life and at some 16 minutes plus in duration is one of the longest composition we have ever had from the artist. This for me is a suite of several parts, all of which are utterly sublime and creating an artistic and fascinating musical voyage, with moments of sparkling keyboard and electronic magic, Tsode brings us an epic journey of Life like never before, and has us all held in the palm of his hands whilst doing so. The concluding piece is a remix of track 3 entitled Kismet (EvilSound Remix), which brings our journey to a climax with a stunningly fluent electro pop finish.

Sound Polarities by Tsode is a truly epic release; some 15 tracks can be found within the realms of this new album, and in some ways the release and its contents manage to cater for most listeners musical preferences along the way. Here is an anthology of smart and gifted arrangements from one of the finest electronic musicians of his day, and an album of infectious energy, one that should be supported by all and called, Sound Polarities by Tsode.