Space Mirrors - Nexus Between Space and Art (2024)

SPACE MIRRORS – Nexus Between Space And Art Album/CD
Predominantly from the hands and creative mind of Alisa Coral, along with a suitable helping of guest musicians including ex-Hawkwind Nik Turner on flute on one track, this is a full length CD that's as powerful as it is spiritual. The first 6 tracks are brand new mixes of the tracks that were on the “Interplanetary Oddities” download, so let's start with those.
The opening track veritably fires out of the traps as a huge rush of sound thunders out right at you, this tidal wave of guitars, riffs, rhythms, electronics and mellotron, all providing an energy that starts at a height and slowly spirals down before gathering pace once more and firing up even higher than before, a kind of space-rock adrenaline rush that takes you out of orbit and really scores. There's a whole lot going on in the heady, rolling mix that's as powerful as it is dramatic, even at times almost spiritual.
Then comes “Transmissions From Mars Part 1” where a squall of guitar riffs heralds the sound of space control as sampled voices from the Mars landing control room add to the almost amorphous soup of searing theremin, blood curdling undercurrents, slowly rolling drums and then suddenly the path clears, allowing a military arsenal of stomping riffing guitars, pounding bass, solid drums and electronic heat firing out at all angles as the track ferociously progresses to the 4 and a half minute point, where it decelerates and then gathers a new head of steam with infinite guitars, still the slow pounding rhythm and a whole new landscape of swooping electronics. The similarly 6 and a half minute “Part 2” continues where the first one left off, and this times twists and turns through a variety of meaty space-rock territories, the instrumental depth as full sounding as the swooshing synths are powerful, the bass solid and upfront, this time the voices that appear are alien and otherworldly, barely distinct from the instrumentation.
The 7 minute “Siddartha” is synths driven with a decided Middle Eastern vein running through its melodies, as a kind of Moroccan space-rock makes its presence felt, both original enchanting, powerful and mesmerising. The 5+ minutes of “Moon 44”, essentially a brand new track, herald the arrival of sequenced synth rhythms, cosmic electronics, swooping synth comets, a building fogbank of space music as a guitar feeds back, the tension rises, deep bass pounds below and the sequenced rhythms become the focal point of the track, a kind of Tangerine Dream in hyperspace, but with so much going on around the core heart of the track.
The album ends with the calm of the near 3 minute “21st Century Electronic #2”, which is just superb – if you like the idea of Nico doing interweaving space-rock, that is – with Alisa's vocal absolutely dramatic, the ebbing and flowing of the electronics giving a very rhythmic sway as the deep presence of drums and what sounds for all the world like Simon House's violin, makes the track sound like a cross between Hawkwind and Mother Gong.
Then onto 39 minutes of brand new music not previously available, starting with 9 and a half minutes of “Kepler-442b” where a slowly moving army of electronics, drums, bass and guitars, shudders along with a depth that is unreal as the assorted musical tectonic plates, shift and drive, while there's a beautiful flute solo from Turner in the middle of the piece, heralding the climb into space as the intensity subsides and electronic sunburts rise to the surface, all the while the excellent drumming providing the rhythmic anchor as the track decelerates but loses none of its strength, now more cosmic rock than before,a s the magical flute returns and the track drifts in spectacular fashio, towards its final resting place.
“T Coronae Borealis” starts with spacetronics and sequencers, the latter moving in cyclical fashion like some outer space ferris wheel, gradually taking on a much more bass heavy sound as the almost “Berlin-school” type track, weaves its synths-laden interstellar spell. “Cydonian Lullaby (alt piano edit)” is what you'd expect from the title, but as an instrumental, it's no sleeping matter – after a brief intro that makes you think you're in softer sounding territory, it bursts into life with a melody that's truly memorable, as the backdrop of piano, drums, bass and guitar, back this uplifting guitar lead which then subsides as the reins are taken over by piano and rarely has a piano melody sounded so fantastic in what is a slowly moving lava flow of space-rock undercurrents.
The 9 and a half minute “KOI-4742” is a wondrous cosmic synths-based track that has all the hallmarks of the early Teutonic pioneers of “Kosmische Musik”, while “Awake in 2004” start with a shimmering lead that sounds like an electric harmonium (but isn't) as synths are added in the background, the track starts to build and an electronics-based city emerges from the desert, guitar riffs forming a strong foundation on which the slowly intensifying track, builds and rises upwards, gradually turning form space to space-rock before your very eyes. The album ends with 3 and a half minutes of cosmic synths-based gorgeousness in the form of “Crab Nebula”, as mellotron and synths become one, the whole things rises to a climax and ends the album in a truly awesome way.
So, there you have it – 72 minutes of instrumental magic and the CD is limited, so grab this while you can, 'coz there won't be any more once it's gone.