Krikor - Seven Hertz

How did I miss this release more than two years ago?

Seriously satisfying haul of deep & wavy ambient-leaning mood music from L.I.E.S. affiliate Krikor Kouchian, deploying 40 minutes of fizzing synths into clouds of smoke situated somewhere between Vangelis, Artemiev, Thomas Köner and 0PN.

Establishing quite a rep as soundtrack composer with his scores for ‘Building Arnold Schwarzenegger’, 'Six & Demi Onze' and ‘Saudi’ in recent years, ’Seven Hertz’ finds the ambidextrous Parisian producer push into deepest sci-fi-cinematic sound design in a classic model somewhere between Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’, THX1138 and 2001: A Space Odyssey, albeit defined by a sort of gallic clinamen to mystery and romance.

You know the stuff, and it’s done here so brilliantly well, ranging from a dark ambient regression in ‘7hz intro’ recalling Delia Derbyshire’s ‘The Dreams’, to a soaring trance elegy somewhere in the vicinity of Malibu/DJ Lostboi in ‘A Short Cycle of Club Life’, and gawping ambient IMAX dimensions in ‘Merciless Retaliation’. ‘The Last Dream’ marries Eno-esque subtlety with samples of Picnic At Hanging Rock, and ‘Love Memorabilia’ switches to a Hollywood finale scaled like some Jóhann Jóhannsson work, and the supernaturally textured electronics of ‘Rotting Flesh Suit’ locate him on a line from JMJ to FSOL and the West Mineral lot.