Norlander, Erik - The Galactic Collective

Year of Release: 2010
Label: Chian Productions/Think Tank Media
Catalog Number: TTMD-1054
Format: CD
Total Time: 79:00:00

To say that Erik Norlander is a terrific keyboardist would be an understatement. And, at least here on the Galactic Collective, there are no "understatements." Here Norlander has taken his best instrumental bits and recorded them with an arsenal of keyboards and an arsenal of cohorts. The material ranges from his solo work, to his Rocket Scientists material to his work with Lana Lane. And it's fantastic! Even if you haven't heard the original versions -- and, ahem, in some cases I have not (yet) -- you shouldn't feel "oh, I've heard that before." This is not a greatest hits set repackaged to make you part company with your hard earned cash - although, ironically, it's a package that will make you want to part with your hard earned cash.

I'm not taken to hyperbole (above paragraph aside), at least I've not been in a while it seems, but... here it is: "Neurosaur" is majestic and epic, ridden by particularly tarty synths, and herded by muscular drums (Nick LePar) and kept on the path by assertive bass (Mark Matthews). "Fanfare For Absent Friends" begins as a lyrical piano piece, then storms into a demonstrative ... uh... fanfare. It's strident, bold, lively (especially so starting at the 3-minute mark), full not only of Norlander keyboard/synth work, but a fiery hot guitar solo by Freddy DeMarco... it's wicked and matched only by Norlander's fierce playing.

"Sky Full Of Stars" is lush and romantic, even with the great sweep of Norlander's tart keyboards (by tart, it's a tight sound, just on this side of shrill - and that is to say, not at all shrill). DeMarco's keening guitar soars, notes lovingly sustained... a bit in the fashion of Gilmour, but far less languid, and sharper, rawer in a way. It is space rock - as the title might suggest - but also as the title suggests, it is space full of sights and delights, not the endless black and cold of some space rock/imagery. Here the black velvet is alive with twinkling pinpricks of light that hold promise of intelligent life... we are not alone but merely one speck in a community of thousands. Yes, all that from a 10:00 minute journey.

"Astrology Prelude" is a cool piece. It's hot, but it's cool. Lots of neat moments, passages, effects. It's ... groovy. Funny, I did not comment on it in my review of Lane's Secrets Of Astrology. It's a piece that demands - in as much as maybe all his material does - air keyboards. I found myself often at my desk, and even as I was composing this review, doing that very thing to the main riff.

A bit darker and more sinister is the percolating "Trantor Station." This one of my 10 favorite tracks on this release -- oh, there are only 10? Well, then, what does that say? I just dig this track; it's one I'm familiar with somehow (other than the couple dozen times I've played this CD), but I'm not sure why - well, other than having seen Norlander live at the first CalProg and then again with the Rocket Scientists at RoSFest 2007. And I'm sure he'll play this at RoSFest 2011. Keyboards are surely present, but it's also the percussive thrust of this that I dig. I don't know, it is space rock and yet, like "Sky..." not the usual sort, or at least not the sort I expect. It's energetic and gets the heart pumping, blood flowing in an electric way...

By way of contrast, this is followed by the elegant and lovely "After The Revolution" (from the most recent Rocket Scientists album Revolution Road (which, by the way, Marcel's review of it remains our most read review). It's another stellar - in both senses of the word (har har) -- track. Great, emotive guitar solos - the type of which I simply LOVE. Plus, piano, voices providing just the right amount of "ahhs" (and it's not a synth patch, it is Lane.... well, ok... she could have recorded them once and become a synth patch or whatever that Norlander triggers ... that would make it really ethereal. I didn't comment on it in my RR review, but... there is a sequence of notes that happens to remind me strongly of Misplaced Childhood-period Marillion. But, there is so much more than those six or seven notes (repeated 2 or 3 times throughout) that... well, it's just something I noticed this time 'round.

We also are treated to: "Garden Of The Moon," which recalls in some small ways "Trantor Station," but more specifically, ELP for the brief time they were Emerson Lake and Powell. It's a certain boisterous keyboard tone that Emerson employed on, notably, "Touch And Go" (their lone hit from the lone album). And "Dreamcurrents," described in the booklet as Norlander's signature solo piano piece. Well, you know, it's Norlander - it's fabulous. It's not entirely solo piano as there's a bit of percussion in there two, but oh, it's mostly Norlander tickling those ivories - according to the liner notes, a Steinway grand piano.

The album closes with the 20-plus minute "The Dark Water" which combines together the six parts that were on the Rocket Scientists Brutal Architecture, Oblivion Days and the Looking Backward retrospective. Now, when you think of languid space rock, trips through the vastness or slow flybys of planets in our solar system - this is it. The first part makes you think you're drifting through the clouds of Jupiter or a like planet; the next movement would reflect Mars, I think. God of war; this is rumbling, martial in a way, dark, heavy, and beautifully brutal. But, we have to set aside "outer space" and think about "inner space" here (if we don't want to think of the inky blackness of space in metaphorical terms as "dark water" - and yeh, Neptune is a planet, but Neptune is also the god of the sea...*). So, it's not Jupiter, but rather, first, the shallow depths of the sea, frothy surf on the surface...Then we sink lower, in the darker, colder, unknown depths of the deeper ocean. There are some similarities to this piece (around the 8-10 minute mark) that recall "Trantor Station," especially in the rumbling percussion and percussive keyboard effects. We pretty much stay in a very turbulent state throughout the suite's 20-plus minutes. I'm sorry, throughout the suite's 20-plus fabulous minutes.

The production of this CD is wonderful, too. And the sequencing of tracks is all part of that - it should be, but there seems to have been extra special effort taken here. Or perhaps because it's so perfect it just seems that way. The booklet includes an introduction written by Michelle Moog-Koussa (daughter of Robert Moog), and then details of where each track in its original form can be found, along with other variants.

*there is a tangent we can go on here, pursuing the lineage of the Greco-Roman gods... but in my own little web excursion I learned that Neptune is, in some Greek tellings, Jupiter's brother... so funny I should mention Jupiter quite by coincidence, on a whim; he's the god of the sky (which, if we expand the sky, could be, but probably isn't, the space beyond our planet... oh, aside from current belief at the time the gods were ... in vogue, let's say. Which itself leads to another tangent, more philosophical on the nature of religions, but... let's not digress from our digress). The other parts of the suite are not subtitled, so we can't really glean anything more from that.


Tracklisting:
Arrival (1:47) / Neurosaur (5:00) / Fanfare For Absent Friends (6:08) / Sky Full Of Stars (10:00) / Astrology Prelude (5:45) / Trantor Station (6:27) / After The Revolution (12:16) / Garden Of The Moon (5:18) / Dreamcurrents (5:38) / The Dark Water (20:42)

Musicians:
Erik Norlander - Steinway grand piano, Moog, Alesis, Oberheim, ARP, Yamaha, Waldorf, Sonic Reality and Native Instruments synthesizers, Rhodes electric piano, Optigan, Mellotron, Hammond organ, additional guitars
Mark Matthews - fretted and fretless bass guitars
Nick LePar - drums and percussion
Freddy DeMarco - electric and acoustic guitars

Guests:

John Payne - electric guitars (2, 7), choral vocals (2)
Mitch Perry - electric guitar (7) (3rd theme, 2nd solo)
Ron Redfield - electric guitar (5, 7) (1st solos)
Mark McCrite - acoustic guitar (4, 9)
Lana Lane - choral vocals (7)

Discography:
Selected:

Rocket Scientists - Earthbound (1993) (OOP)
Rocket Scientists - Brutal Architecture (1995)
Threshold (1997)
Rocket Scientists - Earth Below And Sky Above (1998)
Rocket Scientists - Oblivion Days (1999)
Into The Sunset (2000)
Music Machine (2003)
Threshold - Special Edition (2004)
Stars Rain Down (2004)
Seas Of Orion (2004)
Rocket Scientists - Revolution Road (2006)
Hommage Symphonique (2006/2007)
Rocket Scientists - Looking Backward (2007)
The Galactic Collective (2010)

Live At St. Petersburg (DVD) (2006)

Genre: Symphonic Prog

Origin US

Added: May 9th 2011
Reviewer: Stephanie Sollow
Score:
Artist website: www.eriknorlander.com
Hits: 3678
Language: english