Emissaries

Artist: Radio Massacre International
Label: Cuneiform
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 045775021126
EAN: 0045775021126
ASIN: B0009GUT3S

Release Date: 2005-05-10

Emissaries

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Space Rock

General

| Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Electronica

| Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Seeds Crossing the Intersellar Void
Priest Crossing Frozen Water
Mad Bob's Self-Inflicted Torment
Emissaries Reveal Themselves
Ice Garden
Promise of Salvation
Emissaries [Comic Strip][*]

Tracks:

Interstellar Vacuum Is Far from Empty [Live]
Mobile Star Systems [Live]
Piano Wanders the Incandescent Vapours [Live]
Sympathy for the Bedeviled [Live]
Arrival of the Seeds [Live]
Deliverance from Nuclear Winter [Live]

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Customer Reviews:

My great new electronic discovery!.......2007-01-19

I just recently discovered RMI, well better late than never. Well, I saw a description of RMI on their 2005 American release, Emissaries, and it sounded interesting, and I bought it and I wasn't disappointed.

This album got released on Cuneiform, a label that existed since the 1980s that specializes in progressive rock, experimental, avant garde, RIO, etc. And what a great way for me to get started with RMI than Emissaries, after all, being released on Cuneiform, it obviously would be more readily available than their other releases.

RMI is a British electronic trio consisting of Steve Dindale, Duncan Goddard, and Gary Houghton. Are you, like me, believe that Tangerine Dream hadn't released much anything worthwhile in the last 20 years? Are you sick and tired of hearing of another electronic act coming down the pike claiming they're the best thing since mid 1970s Tangerine Dream, only to end up as another generic New Age act? Well, RMI has came to the rescue. If Emissaries is anything to go by, I will be looking forward to getting their other releases (if they show up, that is, which I'll explain). They have a huge back-catalog, but only available on a small British label, and for every commercially available CD, they issued something like 5 CD-Rs which you can only get from the band. If it keeps going like this, and you include the CD-Rs with the CDs, they'll be quickly overshadowing Tangerine Dream in amount of recorded output within another decade.

Well, I really like this retro-electronic approach. They go for a truly wonderful analog approach, with analog keyboards, like different Moogs (Memorymoog, Source), EMS AKS (although this CD don't mention anyone using one, although the photo shows Duncan Goddard with an EMS synth, you only saw the top part, but I discovered it was an AKS, which is esentially a Synthi A with a membrane keyboard included), Yamaha CS50 and CS30, Roland SH-3, and most of all, the Mellotron, and believe me, this is the real deal, not some digital facsimile! Another keyboard not mentioned, although I do hear it, is the Elka Rhapsody.

Although comparisons are made to Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Richard Pinhas, Redshift, and even Hawkwind (?), the overall feel I get is that of mid '70s Tangerine Dream. I don't understand the Hawkwind comparison, however, I can understand comparisons to those other acts. These guys tend to use sequencers, and when the sequencers work overtime, they would given them a rest for some really nice, ambient passages. Emissaries is essentially two lengthy pieces ("The Emissaries Suite" and "Ancillary Blooms") divided into six separate parts each. First CD is a studio recording made in England, recorded late 2004, the first, recorded earlier in 2004, is recorded here in America, from a Philadelphia radio broadcast (courtesy of WXPN) called Star's End, originally two hours long, this is the 76 minute excerpt. Don't expect any audience cheering on this live half, but the band sure proves they can hold their own live.

This is an enhanced CD, which you can access a comic done by Matt Howarth through the Acrobat Reader on your computer, and believe me, this ain't the comics you grew up as a kid (Spider Man this is not). It has a post-apocalytic theme involving a nuclear winter, alien flowers coming to Earth, and a priest and a madman. He did this comic to fit the theme to this album. Many of the song titles relate to the comic, like "Seeds Crossing the Interstellar Void", "A Priest Crossing Foreign Water", "The Ice Garden", "The Arrival of the Seeds", etc.

It's great to see new electronic music every bit as good as the best stuff from the 1970s. There is no New Age fluff to be found anywhere, and nothing that reveals this was recorded in 2004! Great stuff I highly recommend!

24 albums since 1995 and still going strong..........2005-06-12

RMI has signed on with the U.S. prog label Cuneiform for this release, which offers two great CDs for the price of one, a great introduction for American fans who may not have heard of them until now. This British trio features Steve and Duncan on synthesizers and Gary on guitar, and they specialize in long instrumental electronic numbers, largely improvised. Disc one is new studio material, and begins by whooshing by like a solar wind, if you could hear it in the vacuum of space. Mellotron strings come in low, then synth oboes playing over the top of each other, followed by eerie male choirs. From this formless atmospheric mélange comes a lone guitar, and then the inevitable sequencer starts percolating. The band continues to find previously undiscovered niches of sound that are highly appealing. Disc two is a live set recorded for the Star's End radio program in May 2004. It too is full of wonderful moments, like the pinging bubbling woody sounds in the middle of the opening track, and a percussion-based sequence to start the energetic, dramatic "Mobile Star Systems." The disc closes with a brisk Berlin school number that keeps the foot on the accelerator to the end. A must-have CD.

9 out of 10, but 5 here.......2005-05-28

Radio Massecre International was new to me prior to this 2CD release. I like a lot of music and this double set is filled with very listenable electronic ensemble music.I suppose you could call it 'Space Rock' at times, however more often I am reminded of mellow Tangerine Drean, Deuter, Robert Rich, Steve Roach and the like. And there are more traditional instruments as well such as electric guitar, reed instruments (or at least they sound that way).

The players are excellent and the musical pieces are well written. When I listen to the live disc, it sounds as tight and clean as in the studio.
Excellent spin!

New space rock- or at least new-to-you..........2005-05-18

For fans of early/classic period Tangerine Dream, Ash-Ra Temple, Klaus Schultze, Hawkwind, Amon Dull II, and the like. This double-album serves as a best-of into disc to US fans likely to be unaware of Radio Massacre International. The 1st disc is culled from their non-domestic releases, while the 2nd disc was recorded live in the USA in May, 2004.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Jazz Has a Sense of Humor ~ Horace Silver

Storm is Passing Over ~ Phil Mason

At Shelly's Manne-Hole ~ Michel Legrand

The Floating Jazz Festival Trio 1995 ~ Junior Mance

April in Paris//What's New ~ Osamu Koike

Shieldstone 2 ~ Shieldstone

Los Gitanos Cantan a Federico García Lorca ~ Various Artists

Ainda E Cedo ~ Nelson Goncalves

Aggiungi Un Posto a Tavola ~ Various Artists

Best of ~ Kazim Al Saher