3.5

Release data:

Stephan Whitlan – Triangulation
CD, Fairy Nuff Music, 2009

Irish musician Stephen Whitlan joined John Dyson & co. on E-Day 2009, for which he performed a short solo concert as an introduction.
Shortly after the show he was invited to do a full concert at E-Live 2009, so he planned to compose a whole new cd for that occasion during the summer.

The outcome of all his efforts is “Triangulation” which for the most part is filled to the brim with highly melodic, well sequenced and accessible electronic music, featuring lots of prominent synth solo’s that all nicely fit in the characteristic electronic music from the UK and beyond.

The music carries a whole range of vintage elements and warm, symphonic synth scapes, tasty kicked-off by the strong “Arabella’s Trident” before moving into the slow lane with the moody retro spheres of 16-minute “Last Words of the Prophet”.

Next is the 34-minute “The Twin Distortions of Residuality & Disturbance”, cut in three parts. Well, part 1 has lots of energetic soloing and catchy sequencers/rhythms, but Stephen bewares not to lose himself too much. Now we move into the atmospheric, darker and occasionally restless/eerie sounding part 2 which Stephen refers to as a “fabulously strange” one, before things are nicely rounded out more harmoniously in the final part, which has some excellent vintage sequencing at its tail.

The album comes to an end with 15-minute “Dependency Generation”, an improvised piece for which Stephen only applied a Mini Moog and a loop generator. A moving and charming track indeed.

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Stephan Whitlan artist page