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Indeed - Inter-dimensional Space Commander

Artist:	Indeed
Title:	Inter-dimensional Space Commander
Label:	self produced 20419
Length(s):	73 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1996
Month of review:	02/1999

Line up

Brian Hirsch - keyboards, guitars, bass synths, human drum sequencing

Tracks

1)	Surrealistic Sojourn/Speeding Through The Universe	7.25
2)	Ancens-raptor	6.48
3)	Psychedelic Sorceress	5.05
4)	Island Of Illusion	7.21
5)	Mysterious Twin Moons	7.27
6)	Nebulous Void	12.26
7)	In Another Dimension	13.22
8)	Vision Of Three Realms	5.05
9)	Aquamarine Terrace	4.44
10)	Ethereal Oasis	3.20

Summary

The second solo album of Brian Hirsch, but under the guise of a band name.

The music

The first part of the opening track is the spacey Surrealistic Sojourn. The style of the song is reminds me of Floyd's One Of These Days. A rather simple beat, an occasional recurring riff on the guitar and in between Brian soloing in different styles with lots of thrills and such added. The lack of a real band is felt here since the power is a bit lacking. Although the drums might be human sequenced, their sound is often a bit flat. Ancens Raptor is the second track. Fast-paced and again filled with solo's of various kinds and even a drum solo in the middle. This shows that something is true of the human sequencing (at least if I understand the term correctly), but although the playing may be by hand, the sound is still electronic. Psychedelic Sorceress is more or less like the previous tracks: lots of things going on and in this case, as a consequence: little structure. Maybe we should admire the music for the themes, the variety and the effects (which are quite nice). Island Of Illusion is less dazzling and even contains some acoustic guitar. Mysterious Twin Moons is of the slightly cosmic kind, but with a rather jazzy freewheeling feel to it. The following theme is very nice and afterwards percussion becomes more pronounced (rolling from left to right in my ears) and tension starts to build a bit. Still, the build-up is not continued since we enter a rather melancholic part with strings and cello-like synth. The coming over 25 minutes are taken up by two tracks: Nebulous Void and In Another Dimension. The first of these is a slow spacey one with as always lots of sound effects, but also a peaceful atmosphere reminding me of Kitaro. Slowly but obstinately the track gains power through powerful riffs, while in the background the synths gurgle and burble. The drumming is now kept to the background and probably, sadly, that's where it should be. The ending part contains some keyboard sounds that seem to go like scissor's through your brain. In Another Dimension opens menacingly, dark and dissonant, but all too soon we come a spooky, but more melody driven passage. This part is maybe supposed to be a bit more groovy and frankly I do not like it. After this bouncy part, the spooky atmospherics return. In this way a dark atmospheric part is alternated with a more bouncy part (which I usually don't really like), until we come to a more driven part with loud guitar and high keyboards. Good stuff, but afterwards we come back to some seemingly improvised part in which I even put my headphones off to listen if the neighbours weren't drilling in the walls right then. We move right into the tango and afterwards we get a long droning ascending part. Vision Of Three Realms is a three parted piece, but not that long. The three parted thing might be the reason why the track seems so disjointed: some wah-wah like guitar, a groovy bass, a distorted guitar, but also an all-out organ solo. Actually, I can't hear much of the title in this song at all. It sounds more like a blues rock track with synth solo's. Aquamarine Terrace is a soothing piece, a bit wandering though. Closer is Ehtereal Oasis that opens strongly, but then the percussion takes away the whole effect.

Conclusion

Not really rock, but not really synth either. There's some guitar here and although the percussion sounds electronic (and in my ears a place where there is lots of place for improvement) it is more striking than with ordinary synth music. Also, some jazzrock influences (in the looser parts) can be felt. The music is not very structured, with lots of unexpected footfalls. Especially in the beginning of the album the variation was a bit too strong for me, and composition too much absent. The music to me invites to strong and loud playing, but because of the drums and something lacking in production (I feel), this is just not the case. What you end up with is an album full of nice thrills and themes, but still not as rewarding as you might have hoped.