Name: Crystal Machine: Remastered & Expanded Edition
Brand: Esoteric
SKU: 137523670
Price: 17.9 USD
Availability: InStock

Performer Notes

Personnel includes: Tim Blake (keyboards).
Personnel: Tim Blake (synthesizer, mini-Moog synthesizer).
Audio Remasterer: Ben Wiseman .
Liner Note Author: Ian Abrahams.
Recording information: Teac & Sony Recorders.
Photographer: Rosa Gauditano.
Too many synth artists of the early to mid-'70s seemed more interested in demonstrating their dexterity with their instrument than actually showing why it was worth being dexterous with in the first place. The reason Tim Blake is important is because he took the opposite approach entirely. Schooled in Gong and soon to dignify Hawkwind, Blake is a composer first, a technician a very distant second. And if New Jerusalem, his solo debut, represents a peak which electronic rock in general has yet to top, Crystal Machine is at least equal to the task. In maintaining the earlier album's application of melody over mood, Blake totally separates himself from the ranks of sallow, clever souls who let their machines do all the talking -- a lesson which, by year's end, both Jean Michel Jarre and Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" would both have translated into worldwide chart-toppers. More importantly, however, Blake also liberated the synth from the showroom and showman. Two tracks -- "Last Ride of the Boogie Child" and "Synthese Intemporel" -- were drawn from live concerts, an arena where very few onlookers are listening in on headphones and even fewer care how clever the musician is. The fact that flying bottles, cans, or coins interrupts neither performance testifies to that. There is nothing here which packs the sheer visceral energy of "New Jerusalem" itself, of course, but that's a point which Blake himself confirms, by confining the title track this time to a scant minute or two of oscillation, then slipping it nicely into a stick groove at the end of the vinyl. If listeners let their attention wander for a moment, it could play on forever. ~ Dave Thompson

Professional Reviews

Uncut (10/00, pp.78-9) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Warm live electronica on a par with anything by Tangerine Dream..."

The Wire (8/00, p.57) - "...Pitches in somewhere between Tangerine Dream's electronic meditations and Kraftwerk's streaming autobeats. Any hippy surfers hoping to ease into an endless spaceglide should be wary of its reverberant, occasionally jolting rhythmic undertows..."

Album: Crystal Machine: Remastered & Expanded Edition
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Midnight	More Info...
2)	Metro/Logic	More Info...
3)	Last Ride of the Boogie Child	More Info...
4)	Synthese Intemporel	More Info...
5)	Crystal Presence	More Info...
6)	Surf	More Info...
7)	Synthese Intemporel I	More Info...
8)	Synthese Intemporel II	More Info...

Album: Crystal Machine: Remastered & Expanded Edition
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Midnight	More Info...
2)	Metro/Logic	More Info...
3)	Last Ride of the Boogie Child	More Info...
4)	Synthese Intemporel	More Info...
5)	Crystal Presence	More Info...
6)	Surf	More Info...
7)	Synthese Intemporel I	More Info...
8)	Synthese Intemporel II	More Info...