Neuronium
Chromium Echoes

THE REVIEW

The early works of Neuronium represent a safe haven for electronic music lovers: "Chromium Echoes", the fifth album by Michel Huygen's band, was released in 1982 and can be considered a canonical example of traditional electronic music, as it had developed between the mid to late '70s. The fact that the name of this Spanish group circulated so little among fans of the genre, at least in Italy, remains a mystery.

Listen to "Prelude," at the beginning: a killer melody that gets into your head as soon as you hear it and never lets go, repeated ad libitum over an acoustic guitar arpeggio by Carlos Guirao. A short but significant episode for its quality, indeed a prelude to the two more substantial tracks that follow.

The title track is introduced by a vocoder-distorted voice that soon gives way to a harmonic bed of sequencers: on this base begins the waltz of Michel Huygen's solos, the keyboard protagonist. Structured into a couple of main episodes, the track is a gritty sequence of soundscapes, 14 minutes of rhythmic liveliness and melodic freshness.

The start of the third track, "The Neutron Age", is more calm and introspective, but after seven minutes enters a tighter and more urgent phrasing, with lyrical keyboards overlapping, until the synth solos, particularly acidic, bring the piece back to the more usual coordinates. Before the conclusion, there's room for the entrance of a voice that sings a couple of verses of a sort of cosmic song over a subtle harmonic loop; finally, a new synth solo brings the 18-minute track to a close.

"Chromium Echoes" is an excellently crafted album. Without containing groundbreaking novelties, it absorbs and reworks in a personal way the most common stylistic traits of electronic music from those years. A solid introduction for those wishing to (re)start examining the "case" of Neuronium.