Gert Emmens – Metamorphosis

4 reviews for Gert Emmens – Metamorphosis

1. 

   Paul Rijkens – 2022-11-22

   Metamorphosis is a milestone and also a special moment in the career of Dutch synthesist Gert Emmens. Not only it is his tenth album with Groove Unlimited, it is also the first cd Gert has produced using solely old analog instruments. There is no MIDI on the album, only CV/Gate on the sequences. Gert is a real master in creating a mixture between the pure Berlin School retro style with excellent melodies. This puts him aside from most of his musical colleagues in this area. On the Nearest Faraway Place trilogy, which Gert has recently finished, he has produced some of the best music ever. On all of the albums he has done, there was also a mixture between analog retro sounds and modern digital sounds (but, than again, put in a warm bed).
   On Metamorphosis Gert has chosen for an analog sound only. This also means that legendary instruments can be heard on the cd like the ARP Pro Soloist, the Korg 700S, the MiniMoog, the Moog Taurus MK1, the Solina String Ensemble and the massive Yamaha CS80 (remember its huge orchestral sound from Vangelis?). During the Summer of 2009, Gert has borrowed an ARP sequencer from Ruud Heij (with which he has made a number of fantastic albums together) and this lead to the inspiration of making Metamorphosis. The album is accompanied with fine texts by Cadenced Haven.
   Metamorphosis is filled with intriguing electronic retro music that has the same atmosphere and impact as Gerts other albums but with that warm analog sauce with makes it a very special listening experience.

   Stratagen Of Morality opens the album with a great nostalgic feeling using strings and excellent sequencer lines. Then we hear the antique drum boxes that Gert has been using on his recent recordings and quiet and relaxing solos. The drum box also has a prominent place on Collision that again has a very strong sequencer. Empathy is a very melodically track, like most of Gerts music but this time even more. Here, the CS80 is used for the lead sound. Emotive Disparity, a short piece, is even composed solely on this big instrument (how on earth did Gert manage to get that in his loft?). Just listen to the modulation effects here. A wonderful sequence introduces Pace Of Voyage in which another classic sound is used: the ARP Pro Soloist, made famous by people like Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks. The sequencer halfway the track reminds of Vangelis Spiral. The most melodically composition on Metamorphosis is Opaque Divergence that has a great melody.

   Metamorphosis is another superb cd by Gert Emmens. It is undoubtedly Gert but a little bit different and that makes it extra special. An excellent way to celebrate his tenth album with Groove.

   2011. Paul Rijkens

2. 

   Gert Emmens – 2022-11-22

   This is my 10th album to be released at Groove Unlimited. I would never have gotten this far without the support and promotion of Groove. A warm thank you very much to Ron and Kees!

   The basic concept behind the album refers to certain dynamic forces of different deviations of life as we know it. This record reflects a translucent wall of evolvement and highlight of pattern of a life as designed by the will of nature. It takes an initiate to hold the capability which represents individual steps of existence that are taken ahead from the moment of learning until the time comes to abide by the fact of being forgotten.
   What this album has to offer through its melody is the message of awareness.. the cognizance of certain different stages of life and all the aspects and experiences that we all somehow undergo one way or the other. It symbolizes the changes of patterns, thoughts, opinions, decisions etc for future steps to take ahead in life. And such changes do play a very important role in the fact of how it actually brings out the best in us and what it makes of us when it comes to contradicting reality with the imaginary thoughts in existence. Thus creates a virtual being within oneself with such optimistic but rather less pessimistic thoughts inside and therefore the term Metamorphosis” synchronizes this with the ritual and variable aspects of survival presence of beings here on earth and beyond..
   The actual reason behind this presence here is what we call a change of existence. In the end we end up back where we started our journey of thoughts and finally leave with nothing but some memories behind into the phase of eternity.

   1)Stratagem of Morality: The scheme of life chosen as planned to be experienced in this worldly life.
   2)Collision: Confrontations of different rituals of morality and its concepts that require one to undergo certain capricious aspects of life as he breathes into it.
   3)Empathy: The ability of acquiring such emotive phases from within and to abide by these emotional feelings that interact with vulnerable facets of life here and after.
   4)Emotive Disparity: The stage of certain moments in life when we face such emotional breakdown which symbolizes a part of change in patterns of actual existence.
   5)Pace of Voyage: A phase of life where one realizes his journey and the basic concepts behind it but yet fails of summon up the reason as to why such route of life has been chosen but still holds the ability to undergo unpredictability of unfair but yet favorable future.
   6)Opaque Divergence: The stage of life which is variably misunderstood mostly because of its opaque visibility in terms of real meaning of existence. This is when one desires to find the answer to life in a new way whereas it has always been there within oneself waiting to be noted and realized which very few people can identify and define in terms of ultimate path of life and its influences behind it. What we thought we knew is what we never realized until the moment of truth approaches but then the words seem to be impervious for those who are yet to arrive at such level of consciousness. Thus metamorphosis continues.

   2010. Gert Emmens“

3. 

   Sylvain Lupari / Guts of Darkness – 2022-11-22

   Metamorphosis is the reflection of a translucent wall translucent wall of evolvement and highlight of pattern of a life as designed by the will of nature. For his 10th album on Groove Unlimited label, Gert Emmens‘s not one to bother with niceties and offers a splendid concept album where the melody is the message of consciousness. And Metamorphosis is stuffed with melodies. Melodies linked to sequences as heavy as deviants in a wonderful analog sound environment. Moved by a new faith and a new passion, Gert Emmens is making the messenger of his new values by offering us a solid opus of which the music draws a wonderful tale on magical thought.

   Strategem of Morality opens Metamorphosis with a heavy atmospheric intro. A dense sound broth where simmers hybrid synth lavas of which layers are criss-crossing and resounding among sinuous synth solos. Solos dancing lasciviously in a somber electronic Genesis drawn of slender twisted waves, hesitating synth pads and reverberating streaks which cross still synth pads as well as distant felted sequential line which livens up little by little Strategem of Morality lavas. Another sequence skips stealthily; leaving its reverberating tracks formed a pace which amplifies delicately its rhythm beneath a hazy mellotron mist. At around the7th minute the rhythm is settling down with a sequential movement to hybrid chords and tones, sustained by electronic percussions which beat finely the pace under a firmament stuffed with fine twisted synth solos. The tempo progresses with this sound architecture unique to Gert Emmens and deviates delicately towards a more ethereal structure with delicate keyboard keys which ring among sequencer chords always so hybrid and hued. This furtive sequential movement which skips stealthily is the cornerstone of the crossed rhythms which endow the rhythmic structures of Emmens on Metamorphosis.
   Collision is the perfect example. After an ethereal intro which molds a sober tempo, criss-crossed by these fabulous synth solos, the rhythm undergoes a transformation by a permutation of a sequential movement stemming from nowhere. These chords skip with a kind of hesitation and with slinky solos. The pace becomes more insistent and modulates an ascending structure from where are escaping soft keys which ring as a guitars. And so goes Collision. Between steady rhythms and atmospheric passages, sequences of the Dutch synthesist shape minimalist and hypnotic rhythms on brief surges where rhythms have arrhythmic measures, bringing Collision towards a superb final decorated of splendid solos which are entangling around sequenced cadences unique to the charming musical world of Emmens.
   Empathy is modeled in the same mould as Collision, except for these spectral solos which whistle above the nervous skipping sequences of the introduction. More compressed cause shorter, Empathy evolves from rhythms to ambiances with synth solos to cerebral magnetism which flutter above a sequential world in constant inversion.
   After the floating Emotive Disparity, Pace of Voyage initiates its musical tale with an unbridled sequential race and spiced up of synth solos as much poetic as lyrical. A piercing solo dismount the tempo, plunging Pace of Voyage into a brief indecisive passage with a heavy and slow sequence which waddles beneath pads of a thinker synth. The tempo becomes then slower, but also heavier. It embraces an ethereal structure with cymbals which flicker besides keys of a keyboard as much pensive, on sequences which try to take back its crazy race beneath breezes of a ghostly synth. But the rhythm is sagging and we dive into a soft and brief cosmic atmosphere with strata which waltz in an oniric oblivion, which nervous and hectic sequences repeal with a sterile rhythmic structure. The tempo is spherical and still. It pounds beneath waves and solos of a supernatural and eerie synth, accompanied by choirs and a mystic mist of a dreamy mellotron.
   A hybrid synth with solos as symphonic as solitary, floating in an ethereal mist, he whistles and sings catchy solos, while Opaque Difference pounds with its first stammering. Solos and breezes of synth are waddling such as padded sequences, increasing gradually a cadence which subtly gallops with discretion in a cosmic mist. Weighed down, the sequence staggers to mold a slow tempo which waves with heaviness among spasms of a hesitating synth and fluid chords which flow as guitars ones. A strange electronic march is following, flied over by tiny streaks and brief solos before the heavy rhythm is drawing, hammered by good percussions. A mesmerizing rhythm which spins delicately, such a cosmic ballet, on a circular sequence sometimes heavy, aggressive and sometimes delicate, hesitating, embracing in the end an ethereal sweetness and exhilarated by suave solos of charming synth. A synth which lulls our imaginary since we became linked to Gert Emmens‘s soft musical universe.

   Ambiguous rhythms on sequences in constants permutations and besieged by beautiful melodies, Metamorphosis is very good and strong Gert Emmens. A complex album from its unpredictable rhythms and where melodies are shaping to sequential movements sometimes spherical and sometimes progressive. Melodies sculptured by an oniric mellotron and synths which sing and whistle on beautiful ethereal structures.
   One of the good albums of 2010!

   2010. Sylvain Lupari / Guts of Darkness

4. 

   Artemi Pugachov / Encyclopedia of Electronic Music – 2022-11-22

   For this album Dutch synthesizer artist Gert Emmens decided to stick to trusty old analog instruments from the 1970’s and 1980’s, using CV / gate technology and analog sequencers to control the machines instead of MIDI. Every piece of equipment used on Metamorphosis” is analog and is of at least 20 years vintage. Thematically