By the time our knees carry us again, the thrill of the drop, the impression of the fantastic panorama, the freshness of the wind in our face and last not least the strange effortlessness with which we made a safe and precise landing blend into the elated feeling that nothing and nobody can touch us today. »Arrival and Assessment« is the name for the soundtrack. »Crixa/5925«, on the flipside: Quite a different trip. Hardly have we jumped out when we realize with terror that we’re not headed towards the ground at all – instead we remain suspended in the clouds, with a strange weightlessness, and after our agitation has subsided, though not our alarm, we begin to sense the buzz of a force field flowing through our body, pulling us softly towards the UFO’s airlock, where we are welcomed in a very alien tongue… What kinds of things might be going through John Elliott’s mind while he’s making tracks as perfect as these two ethereal but cinematic synth epics, now as a duo with Andrew Veres, and this time for the mothership of his star hopper Spectrum Spools? Anyway we’ve made do with a very early title on Force Inc. for the imagery here, “Phantom Center” picking right up from the former’s atmospheric pads: Thomas Heckmann’s »Skydiver«. Himself a very busy analog freak, his catalog of work even contains a compilation series called »Outer Space«. Possible similarities, of course, being purely coincidental.
Phantom Center
