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S.P. Gulliver - The Coasts Of Endlessness

Artist:	S.P. Gulliver
Title:	The Coasts Of Endlessness
Label:	Mellow Records MMP 331
Length(s):	58 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1997?
Month of review:	09/1999

Line up

S.P. Gulliver - keyboards
Andrew Valigura - violin on metamorphosis

Tracks

The Coasts of Endlessness (suite for the Ensoniq SD-1)

1)	Prologue	3.37
2)	Fountains Of Hathir	2.34
3)	Lunar Holiday	3.17
4)	Star Princess	2.12
5)	Robot-secretary	3.13
6)	Radioactive Flowers	3.31
7)	Crystal Mountains	3.07
8)	Nameless Asteroid	3.53
9)	Dancing Centaures	2.57
10)	Blue Atoll	3.42
11)	Rubber Men	3.04
12)	Flight Through The Broken Stars	3.36
13)	Under Sail	3.59
14)	Epilogue	3.36
Metamorphosis
15)	Conception	3.16
16)	Motion	4.20
17)	Separation	4.22

Try a sample of the album in MP3 or RealAudio

Summary

S.P. Gulliver (or Slava as I think he is called ordinarily) is from Estonia. You might know him already from his participation on Andrew Art's solo record also reviewed on my web page.

The music

The opener Prologue (whatever would one call it) starts well. A good melody, mostly synths here (as might be expected since the only thing playing is a machine called the Ensoniq SD-1). The tracks gets more swing later on, but I like the opening better. The drums are not that great. Fountains Of Hathir is a bit of a bubbly track with lots of sounds and an optimistic ring to it. The music is again a bit too bouncy and well commercial one might say. Lunar Holiday is a bit of an abstract piece, quirky and I think the note that this is a 'suite for ...' has a truth to it: the structure of the music is quite classical. Should I have to compare it with something else, I think the Erdenklang label, and most notable Bognmayer (now sadly deceased) and Zuschrader or one of their projects, to be the most promising ones. The music is undoubtedly synthesizer music and not in anyway close to rock. Star Princess brings us back to melody and even romance. Then the music starts to pick up a bit, pace coming to it, but we gently are pushed back into the rather sweet, romantic part. Unfortunately. Robot-Secretary brings something like funk into the music. The music also takes me back to the days of YMO: danceable electropop. Not really my type of music. Nameless Asteroid is a bouncy track with various percussion, and an oft repeated but nice melody. The music sounds like pop compositions for keyboard and with some weird sounds thrown in for good measure and the right atmosphere. Nlue Atoll has influences by Yanni (Kays To Imagination), but it doesn't have the grandeur of the original. The Rubber Men is quite a darling up-tempo piece with a nice melody. Again, a Yanni influence shines through. In Flight Through The Broken Stars the music becomes a little more urgent, while Under Sail so relaxed it becomes uneventful. The suite ends with Epilogue.

The next one is a Sonata including a violin. The first part features violin already. Quite a lot of it in fact. It is not that melodic, as for instance is the second more up-beat part Motion. The Ensoniq and the violin complement each other and I do think the addition of violin gives something extra, a liveliness maybe. If I would want to point him into a direction, I think this would be it. Synthetic music goes only so far. The music here also sounds a bit sequenced. The melody however is still a bit too frolic for me. The last part is Separation, a sparse track, slightly Chinese at first ear. Delicate and interesting.

The music, being synthetic, also sounds synthetic. I think this is on purpose and should be contrasted with various attempts by some musicians to make their percussion as natural as possible.

Conclusion

Not my type of music this. I like synth music in many forms, but this is just a bit too sterile for me. However if you are fond of projects such as Blue Chip Orchestra, Nova or the sterility of YMO then I think you could also like this. The sonata is for me more interesting, especially the delicate last part.