Main
Motion Pool

Space Rock, which emerged in the early '80s, was characterized by the excellent level of the "sky" under which its Authors seemed to settle, and in a highly ambitious transavantgarde ante-litteram project which cited as references the Berlin electronics of Can and Tangerine Dream, the cold and highly cultured classical-electronic experiments of Karlheinz Stockhausen (informative page) and more "up close" the ingenious pop-rock formula devised by The Jesus And Mary Chain (page two), it traced the design of a bold, complex, and ingenious sound geometry, whose main flaw, however, was, as often happens, the limit of its range.
In other words, Space Rock, similar to other denominations like Wall of Sound and Cosmic Rock, was more of an idea, a brilliant and ingenious intuition that lacked the concreteness of translation into a true "genre": the ideas were too chaotically ingenious to be channeled into a well-defined expressive code and give life to a recognizable musical language, a universe of symbols and meanings, perhaps the timeframe available was too short or the attention of the musicians involved was too focused on other focal points to build its indispensable inner grammar.
As in other cases, therefore, rather than a deep-seated change, it was a noble work carried out, however, "elsewhere" compared to the music produced by the two most important bands: Spacemen 3 and Loop.

The architectural and environmental spatiality transposed into heavy, electro-rock harmonic suites and structured according to the scheme of repeated circularity was more due to sound engineering and mixing work than to a real innovation fully unfolded at the instrumental level. Of the two groups, the Loops of Robert Hampson (page three) demonstrated an absolutely uncommon talent, anticipating the transition from the extremism of the post-Velvet Underground intuitions of the Authors of "Psychocandy" to the "genre" (again, the same consideration would apply here) called "shoegazing." As influential as they were self-unaware of their (enormous) potential, the Loops dissolved, giving life to two projects that inherited from them: The Hair & Skin Trading Company, more rhythmic and avant-garde-noise with many electronic nuances (page four) by John Wills and Neil Mackay, and the Main, by the guitar-leader Robert Hampson.

After the EPs "Hydra", "Calm", "Dry Stone Feed", and "Firmament", the real "debut" on the long distance "Motion Pool" is now released. In previous singles (especially "Dry Stone Feed"), the guitar sound driven to pure, deafening noise, marked in various segments by the hypnotic, mechanical, and alienating rhythm of the drum machine, seemed to almost give the illusion (or rather: the psychedelic mirage) of melodic openings, characterized overall by the simple fact of putting the listener to a severe test (difficult to withstand the impact with "music" that, although structured compactly, and commendable for genuine guitar talent, stand as the absolute antithesis of Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music"), in this monumental work with undeniable aesthetic charm, Robert Hampson arrives at that conceptual stylization of guitar virtuosity that he gives the name "drumless space". The tracks contained therein (the industrial simulacrum of "Rotary Eclipse", the ambient interludes of "Liquid Reflective" and "VIII", the visual suggestions of "Crater Scar" and "Rail") are characterized by the total absence of percussion, by the frequent use of drones and samples more or less hidden, perhaps forming a softer soundscape yet paradoxically even more difficult to explore than previous episodes, perhaps an electro-guitar continuum in which the pauses between the various compositions are more conventional than truly necessary.
It is difficult to say to what extent the sidereal chill occasionally felt while listening to this album resembles the sky mentioned at the beginning, how much of it is intentional and how much is heartfelt: what is deliberately conceptual and purely abstract and what is genuinely suggestive in evoking scenarios sometimes static, sometimes liquid and submerged, sometimes incandescent and lava-like, sometimes icy.
According to the writer's point of view, it could really be, beyond these attempts to enclose such an indefinable work within the limits of a definition, a record of fundamental importance, for its elusive, disorienting yet so monolithic character, almost a "Ummagumma" digitized in binary code. Or the staging, in a single, interminable loop, of scenarios more or less involuntarily created in the imagination of the listener. I feel in conclusion to share the words of Piero Scaruffi, which I quote: "close to the glacial surfaces of Stockhausen, the Main create a classical music of guitar distortions." "Movement No-Movement like a falling bird... ", even though set in a liquid context of illusory motion, even though exhausting in the commitment it requires from the listener, this work by Main certainly has a merit, in my view indisputable: it questions the opportunity, even today (if it ever existed), to impose genre limitations and boundaries, first of all between "rock" and "classical" music.