Search - Spacecraft :: Cybersphere

Last essential album of Spacecraft

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 03/05/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Spacecraft, a synthesizer-only US band sounding not unlike, say, Tangerine Dream, released a couple of fantastic albums in the late 90s, none more than the 1998 "Hummel" album, which remains a classic to this day (when I reviewed it back in the day, I called it the best Tangerine Dream album never made by Tangerine Dream). After a couple of somewhat lackluster releases, Spacecraft came back in 2001 with this album.



"Cybershere" (10 tracks; 71 min.) starts off with the 2 essential tracks of the album, "Creative Acceleration" and "Anima-Machine", both 11+ min. tracks that brings out the best of the band, with lush, thriving sounds. "Tunnel" is a hard-charging track, setting us up for "House of Guadi", another urgent track with great underlying synth-bass beats. A couple of slower pensive tracks follow, eventually leading up to the closer, the 12+ min. "Reach Out", another outstanding exploration of deep-space sounds.



After this album, Spacecraft released a couple more albums, but eventually disappeared, regretfully. I had the good fortune of seeing this band in concert several times at the peak of their powers, and it was like being at a Tangerine Dream concert back in the day, just great. If you are into this kind of music, check out also Redshift, a UK-based band that just last year released the excellent "RW3" album (available from their website--Amazon has only one album from Redshift, the remastered debut album which is also worth getting). Meanwhile, "Cybersphere" is the last essential album from Spacecraft, a must-have, period."