SILBERNACHT - Nacht Ohne Sterne

And here's our favourite gothic overture composer back with another tasty helping of silent movie soundtracks. Frank Esser is a man out of time, harking back to the atmospheric soundscapes of the twenties when no trip to the moving pictures was complete without the accompanying sounds of an organist straight out of Phantom Of The Opera. You can picture Heathcliff striding across the desolate moors to the strains of "Bevor Nacht und Tod kamen", imagine the dank and musty castle where the evil count plots his revenge to the sound of "Traumverhangis".

Excellent, if specialised, this is another instrumental treat.

Frank Esser, Kempener Allee 108, 47803 Krefeld, Germany

DICE - "2001 - Dice In Space" (Scene Records)

Fairly hot on the heels of "Dreamland", Dice are back with a new CD. But how new is it? Of the eight tracks here, six are based on compositions from the musical "Die phantastiche Welt" and one originally appeared on their 1994 release, "Nightmare". Which just leaves the one true new track, "New Things In Space".

However, we'll let them off, because unless you happened to be in Leipzig when the musical was performed, you won't have heard them before. Kicking off with "What Is Wrong With Me?", the six tracks work elegantly as a suite of musical themes with the 12 minute "No Return" proving particularly progtastic in its vision. However, it is very different from last years more generic "Dreamland" and might scare off some more recent converts to Dice, dealing as it does in a more pastoral Camel-esque direction.

The aforementioned "New Things In Space" sits rather oddly on the CD. Taking up a hefty chunk of space (17 minutes and counting), it could have used some editing. If you want to investigate Dice then I would suggest you start with "Dreamland" before coming to this. The musical tracks might have been better off issued as a mini CD, so you could concentrate on them more fully as they are excellent and shouldn't be ignored.

DICE c/o F.A.N. Verlag GmbH, Mendelssohnstrasse 3, D-04109 Leipzig, Germany
Dice@zeitpunkt-kulturmagazin.de
http://www.scene-records.de

THE ORION SYNDROME - "The Progressive Perspective"

The Orion Syndrome is David Hearn on guitars, sax, keyboards and vocals accompanied by bass guitar on 2 tracks and drums on 4.
The first 3 tracks are short and, I have to say, unconvincing with a weather report presumably recorded from radio or TV and some dialogue accompanying the music. The feel is of a rather 'run of the mill' 70s progressive blues group.
'The Celestial Show Begins' has a more classical feel to begin with then has a rather clichéd 'Welcome back my friends' dialogue with radio tuning ending up on a story about a comet.
The music works best when David 'stretches out' a bit on the ensuing track 'Meteor Storm' and the pace begins to pick up with 'Astral Athlete' and its catchy West Coast American sounding chorus. 'Hourglass' is also a very catchy song illustrating David's strength I think- composition rather than production. The format so far does not really allow him to show what he is obviously capable of but on 'Acid Rain' the longest track at 10 minutes some Gilmour inspired guitar and good instrumental work adds drama to a record whose intense subject matter is not well reflected in the musical approach taken.
Contact: www.mp3.com/OrionSyndrome

(Fossil Records, 2000)

(Phil Jackson) musician and reviewer, Paradox One