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Kelly Shane is Enemy From Space and, according to an Internet quote, he once described his music as "lo-fi sci-fi electronic music." This is his second album as Enemy From Space and, I gotta say, once I fully explored it (and it took a few playings to do so) I suddenly "got it" and I got it good! This is delightfully quirky, downright subversive, retro-futuristic synthesizer music, an off-the-wall hybrid of early '60s analog sounds, synthesizer "cool" weirdness and tonalities and current-day engineering and beats. Putting it bluntly, this is flat out a helluva lot of fun. If, like me, you grew up in the '60s and '70s listening to recordings from Tonto's Expanding Headband, Synergy, Beaver and Krause, Fifty Foot Hose, (and to a lesser degree, artists like Tomita, Patrick Gleeson, Wendy Carlos) and other earlier pioneers of synthesizer music, you will probably turn cartwheels in your brain when you hear this CD. Describing this, on the other hand, is gonna be damn near impossible. "Valley of the Saroors" opens with a whole lot of whooshing and swooshing before sparkling treated piano and alien bird sounds take over along with plucked strings. "Achilles and the Tortoise" has this funky march-like cadence with lower register synths and starts layering an assortment of analog keyboards all pounding out the same cheesily doom-filled anthem straight out of an old SF film. "The Acropolis of Desire" throws some contemporary glitch beats in amongst the retro synths that sparkle and shimmer in dramatic analog glory. "A Most Unusual Gift of Love" opens with soaring "traditional" synths in a spacemusic vein before veering into left field surrounded by computer-gone-nuts sound effects and stuttering scratching rhythmic noises along with a wonderfully quirky melodic tune played out on harpsichord-like synths. "The Outer Worlds" is close to a straightforward outer space-type slice of EM, with lots of washes of whooshes of synths, bell-tones, and wind-like textures. Sprinkled in here and there are some tom-tom drums that add a slight tribal element to the cosmic sounds. "Crafty" mines the same retro territory that the artist Eien is doing on his work, with synth notes (not chords or washes) and bouncy beats, both very retro, in a light-hearted and playful fashion. Then there is the totally unclassifiable title track, a twenty-one minute journey through perhaps fifty different musical themes. Yes, that's right, I wrote "fifty," and it could be a lot more. Some of the themes last only twenty seconds, others might last for a minute. I wasn't about to count them all! Obviously, something this idiosyncratic, disorienting and bizarre is an acquired taste and has to be approached with a sense of humor and an open mind. However, it has become perhaps my favorite song on the album. I just wouldn't recommend listening to it while high or tripping. Not because it's scary or disturbing; in fact some snatches of melody are outright loopy in the best possible sense and will make you laugh or at least grin. However, the transitions are so rapid and abrupt sometimes that your state of mind may influence how well-received it all is. Out of tune carnival pipe organ followed by fat analog keys and spacy synths, followed by dramatic Synergy-like neo-classical orchestrations, followed by subterranean rumblings, followed by discordant computer bloops and bleeps, followed by Carlos Tron-ish melodies…well, are you getting the idea? And it just goes on and on and on. Yet, the more I listened to it, the more I loved it. I know, I'm weird.
The Condition of Music may not be the easiest to describe album I've ever had to review and it may have been the most confusing to figure out (because I didn't appreciate the subversive humor that Shane is putting forth). Once I did crawl inside this outrageous and fun-filled (and also well-engineered and produced) album, I didn't want to leave. CDs like this one remind me that electronic music can be as much fun as any other genre, if not more so. Highly recommended to those who need a smile put back on their face.
(Bill Binkelman)
Great name for a transwarp driven space rock group but Kelly Shane (who is Enemy from Space) concentrates more on eccentric synth arrangements, unconventional song structures, and quirky electronic effects, ultimately achieving an intriguing compromise between electro-pop surrealism and Eno-esque ambient music. But Shane’s musical antecedents are definitely difficult to pin down, and he certainly stamps his own imprimatur on the twelve songs that comprise The Condition of Music. “The Akropolis of Desire” and “A Most Unusual Gift of Love” are almost nouveau romantic in conception, with cascading synthesizers sparkling and shimmering like a rising tide crashing on a nocturnal windswept coastline. However, Shane’s choice of eccentric background effects adds a distinctive color rarely heard in music of a similar hue and cast. The closest parallel here might be the Cluster of Zuckerzeit, perhaps Bill Nelson’s ambient work of the 80s (particularly his soundtrack work, Das Kabinet and La Belle et la Bete), and the work of French pop-synth auteur Pascal Comelade. Songs such as “The Condition of Music” and “Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously” weld together in a dizzying fashion fragments of electronic rhythms, chimes, stochastic synthetic beats and sequences that constantly shift from major to minor to diminished scales and move effortlessly from one timbre to another. Very odd, very disturbing, and never repetitious or jaded. This is definitely boundary dissolving electronic music, sometimes cinematic in scope, and at other times wildly eclectic in its persistent attempt to evade the characteristic monotony that often plagues even the best artists who consistently work in this genre. If you’re looking for something left of center, The Condition of Music certainly won’t disappoint the Dadaist in you.
(Charles Van de Kree)
It's not often that a drummer who has worked with a number of rock bands should turn his attention to the exploration of electronic music, but here the opening track is based on a simple plodding piano type chord surrounded by ambiences that attracts your attention more than you think it should. The label is based in Rome and this release is mainly the work of Kelly Shane. It's more electronica than the ambient tendencies of the first track Valley Of The Saroos. The second track is one of those building masterpieces that uses great bass riffs and beguiling synth sounds to allow mental images to imagine a struggle between Achilles And The Tortoise. The following track The Acropolis Of Desire could easily be classed as synth pop apart from the unusual beat and the distinctive use of reverb that reminds me of some of the work of Sabres Of Paradise. I still think its another good instrumental from what is quickly becoming a very interesting CD. To change aspects again, the fourth piece is slower and hence ambient with high pitched quirky noises before the very infectious main theme develops. This guy knows how to keep the listener's attention. Fairground organ sounds combined with marimba style lasts for only one minute before the rich swirling noises slowly give way to a complex drum beat on The Outer Worlds. It's really a competition between both to see whose boss. The title track displays to very fine effect, how many varying bits of music can be assembled to fit and make one track. It also made me smile, as perhaps it is at times a little similar to some of Rick Wakemans stuff. Its not a short filler as it lasts for in excess of 20 min and that includes a fade out! One of my favourite tracks is the finale with the imaginative title Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, which is a mixture of ambient and non-ambient tunes that is quite a dreamy piece. I previously reviewed his Abstractions CD in MD and discovered quality in abundance and now he has surpassed that goal. If you want something a little different yet remaining tuneful, here is a great album for you.
(Philly)
--Modern Dance , November 2004 review of The Condition of Music
Enemy From Space is a solo project by Kelly Shane, whom AI readers may know as the drummer for both Naked Elf and Solution Science Systems. And as much as those two bands differ in sound from each other, so does the music on Abstractions differ from them. The unexpected happens. Shane trades his drums in for synthesizers and creates some pure, electronic, mysterious, beautiful, and often freaky space music. I’m not sure exactly what to compare this too. It’s not ambient washes of sound, nor is it sequence driven like the Krautrock pioneers. There’s certainly a prog influence here, as pieces have a structured feel to them, often changing pace and style midway through. And each piece is completely distinctive in it’s own sound, something unusual in this kind of music. Legion of Superpets, for example, (despite its amusing title) is full of shimmering, deep space reverberations, like floating on the edges of sunlight against a starry backdrop. Mysteries of Space, however, is a one of those tracks with a proggy feel, shifting through several different sonic landscapes during the course of its 4-minute length, from twittering, liquid sound effects to an upbeat, Jean-Michel Jarre-like melodic romp, to a soaring, symphonic conclusion. To Be Born, on the other hand, is a dark and disturbing little piece, full of crashes, eerie electronics, distorted noises, and what may be sampled voices. One of my favorite pieces is Witchcraft ’69, the longest track on the album, clocking in at 7 ½-minutes. Horror movie organ floats through darkly ambient pastures of sound, while distorted voices and other sound effects fade in and out of the mix. It’s a cool, and quite effective journey. Though it brings me to my one complaint about the album. I liked Witchcraft ’69 because it stretched out for a bit and did some exploring. But some of the pieces on Abstractions were just too darn short! Just as I was getting into them they would fade out!
Still, this is a fascinating and very listenable journey into some strange, beautiful, often very alien, and yes, definitely abstract electronic realms. (Jeff Fitzgerald)
The debut CD by Kelly Shane, who in the past has mostly been a drummer and has now, created this electronic music project to display his versatility. The name comes from a 50's sci-fi film and the music would fit neatly into one of these apart from the mere fact that it is much more sophisticated. The short opening track Emanations is a typical ambient piece and does not give any insight to this guy's talent. Thankfully the second track, Legion of Superpets is truly magical and most memorable section of soundwaves that will have you singing along, despite the fact that it's an instrumental! This is followed by a really magnificent track Golem, where the shimmering electronic effects are put to the test and the melodies despite being bold are very catchy. It should be quite a spooky track, but the darkness is absent and so it has a happy go lucky feel to it. More reverb is used to good effect on Nancy & Sluggo, where the themes are always changing. The finale, Loving The Chimera is a slow moving, but beautifully excited piece of haunting electronica. There are only 9 tracks here and it doesn't last much longer than 38 minutes, but it quality rather than quantity. (Philly)
Enemy from Space is Kelly Shane. Abstractions is his debut CD and it is an answer to a question that has not been asked. Several critics, reporters, reviewers and authors (including me) have observed that the "instant gratification" approach has not worked well with e-music. Minimalists, ambient musicians and Berlin school graduates seem more interested in creating evolving pieces that require time and effort for listening. Kelly asked "Why?" He created a CD with nine intelligent compositions that evolve but evolve quickly. The entire disc is about 40 minutes long. Listeners can get quick fixes or focus on the entire set as a single set with multiple foci. [Jim Brenholts]
"This was one of the most bizarre releases I have ever had the pleasure of reviewing. ..."Camera Obscura" was deeply soothing without becoming bogged down in new age doldrums. Despite the electronic nature of the musicianship, the songs convey a wealth of emotion, something rarely said about this style. The aforementioned "Camera Obscura" was meancholy and much darker than "A Quiter Life", a track with a bit more positive ressonance. Tell your friends about this split.
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"Enemy From Space, on the other hand, is a bit weightier: in two short synth pieces, he conjures up Tangerine Dream, the soundtrack to THX 1138, and the second 6ths record. "Camera Obscura" runs backmasked synth washes over sci-fi sound effects, creating a sonic image midway between an anime set in Japan's middle ages and a landing on Mars as imagined by Kubrick. "A Quieter Life" is all arpeggios, as if four children were playing a round on vintage keyboards. Quite pleasant. This record is probably worth buying for its cover alone, but the music ensures that it won't embarrass the rest of your collection."
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