Brainticket
Celestial Ocean

THE REVIEW

Enchanting dreamlike journeys, slightly neurotic intergalactic vocal dialogues, ancestral percussions, exotic and magnetic multiracial sonic orgies where sitar, tablas, and cuíca blend unabashedly with sophisticated, intense electronic phrases, dashes of Hammond, and delicate flute touches.
All of this directed by a versatile Swiss/Belgian musician-guru: Joel Vandroogenbroeck.

The third masterpiece of cosmic avant-garde by this psychedelic multinational named Brainticket is a concept inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Recorded, amongst other places, in Italy, it appears more polished and mature than the previous works. The primitive melodic gloom, already partially abandoned in "Psychonaut," is less prevalent, favoring more fluid and elegant sound devices, while still maintaining vague traces of the psycho-progressive Canterbury of the Soft Machine, unsurprisingly, one of Vandroogenbroeck's favorite groups.
"Celestial Ocean" could be designated as one of the cornerstones of that proto-new age movement, in good company with Popol Vuh's "Hosianna Mantra," and (perhaps it's a stretch), as a pioneering work of what will generally be called techno music, if only for the massive use of electronics and synthesizers present in the album.

A special attention is due to the American singer Carole Muriel, who brings to life vocal dissertations worthy of an erotic android. She is the female automaton of "Metropolis," the Brigitte Helm in kosmische musik version, with the notable merit of not descending into a cold impersonality of style.
If you love the mystical and archaic trip of the original interstellar psychedelia, the genuine and cultured experimentation, swimming on the edge between temporal spaces and parallel worlds in an ocean that is indeed celestial but also sensually earthy, and wandering in abstract and impalpable dimensions, this is probably the record for you.