H.U.V.A. Network - Ephemeris

Review written by Gad.K

The brilliant half Swedish half French duo is back with a stunning formulated album.
This time with more dynamic and crystallized compositions they are pushing the boundaries once again.The pair of sound architects, Magnus Birgersson ( Solar fields ) and Vincent Villuis ( Aes Dana ) created 10 new perfectly sculpted and engineered gems made of glitchy hazy trip-hop,glowing soulful sort of an aurora borealis atmospheric powerful ambient,dark psychedelic electronica with melancholic vibes yet with sparks of hope and gleaming renewed polished Progressive morning trance.

In a addition to their wonderful composing and arrangement abilities the two dream weavers are using their excellent production skills as another instrument for intensifying the emotions and ambience that they masterfully poured into their creation,and as always from the Ultimae team and artists the combination between beautiful unique music and high quality production creates a big boost for the imagination and for the soul as well.

Already in their excellent first album [ Distances ] it's very possible to hear the great potential in the collaboration between these two talented musicians and that they are here for exploring new directions.

[ Ephemeris ] is a multilayered album with perfectly realized ideas.
strong energetic bass lines,atmospheric moving melodies,sophisticated,tight and intense beats and rhythms and crispy fat sounds are the fibers of this album. beautiful illuminated colorful textures are blending with solid,more rough and electrifying textures and enchanted hypnotic ones are there as well,lurking mysteriously,revealing themselves from time to time falling from above or bursting from within,and all of this is crafted and manipulated by Magnus and Vincent in a very smart way, creating wonderful luminous soundscapes with emotional and psychedelic depths,so [ Ephemeris ] acts like a sequel in an epic story and the name - H.U.V.A Network ( Humans Under Visual Atmospheres ) really lives up to it's meaning.

[ Ephemeris ] is a very innovative album from two of the most innovative and creative artists in this turf of music.

Magnus and Vincent crafted some new ambient territories,fresh downtempo regions, some other dimensions of trip hop, and morning trance with excellent classic morning trance elements and new and exciting elements.

Everything just blends together perfectly,creating something very special and futuristic.

Humans Under Visual Atmospheres is back with a long awaited sophomore release on Lyon (France) based Ultimae Records. Before I cover the album, it's worth it to pause and deconstruct this group. Huva Network is a duo comprised of Magnus Birgersson and Vincent Villuis. Birgersson is none other than Solar Fields, a regular on Ultimae, with six full length albums. If that alias sounds familiar, it's probably because you were blown away by his recent music score for the Electronic Arts game Mirror's Edge. That's right, that's Birgersson. And Monsieur Villuis is none other than Aes Dana, an alumni member of Asura (as of 2001) and part owner of Ultimae with Sandrine Gryson (Mahiane). With such a solid and talented combination, you'd be right to get excited about this next installment in psybient evolution. The purveyors of "oneiric trip-hop", downtempo, and "ambient geometries" will be absolutely delighted with the psychedelic melodies, etherial sound design, and impeccably crisp production. Seekers of sonic voyages will be enveloped by limitless soundscapes, spreading over slow punctuated beats that eventually lift off into an outer journey. The mid portion of the album picks up in tempo, and evolves into a light morning trance, keeping with the rhythm of a four-to-the-floor kick drum. But at the end of Ephemeris, the beat slows down once again, to bring you back down to Earth, after your brief meditative trip. The album was composed between two studios, Villuis' Ultimae Studio in Lyon, France and Birgersson's Studio Jupiter in Göteborg, Sweden. The deluxe edition of the digipack release contains a sixteen page booklet with photographic works by Gingerine, BeneA, Concoon, Goulden, 1100, and Matzchen. Here is a quote from the album defining its title: An ephemeris (plural: ephemerides; from the Greek word ephemeros "daily") is a table of values that gives the positions of objects in the sky at a given time or times. The position is given in a spherical polar coordinate system of right ascension and declination or in logitude along the zodiacal ecliptic, and sometimes declination. The ephemeris paramaters relate to eclipses, apparent retrogradation/planetary stations, planetary ingresses, sidereal time, positions & the phases of the Moon, Cartesian coordinates, picnic on Mars, breakfast on Jupiter and disturbing jetlags. While filling your cart on Ultimae's web shop, be sure to add the duo's first collaboration, Distances (Ultimae, 2004), as well as Solar Field's recently released Movements (Ultimae, 2009) and Aes Dana's Season 5 (Ultimae, 2005). I am also a big fan of the Ultimae's Fahrehnheit Project compilation series, with its last installment being Part 6 as of 2006. Favorite track on the album: Orientations Part 1