Leon Bolier – Phantasma
Pin ItSeptember 25th, freezing Saturday night. "I was looking forward to finding time for this", was the only thought I had in my head that day. I finally managed to get some free time, to listen to the complete ‘Phantasma‘ album.
I grabbed my Audio-Technica headphones, laid down on my bed, closed my eyes and turned on the volume high.
From the very first beats, I recognized that the album is very similar to the night outside my window… cold & dark but magical, hard & emotional.
My heart was beating like a bumping sub woofer, by every beat that was thrown at me. From all the producers who released albums this year, Leon was the one from whom I was expecting the least. But I was very wrong about that. Leon surprised me completely this time. The whole album carries the dark, tech-proggy, yet still a bit uplifty feel, that exactly shows who stands behind it. I can say that, Leon has truly put his own heart into ‘Phantasma. All of the fine, deep, chill-out tunes will slowly creep right behind your soul while your expectations & calmness will be completely tore apart with a tech-trance massacre!
I won’t be writing down my opinion about every single track on the album this time. (there are too many ^^)
Just let me say, that "By Your Side (I’ll Be There)", with Fisher, has almost made me cry :) And not many tracks can really do that…
Then of course "2099", with Marcus Schössow has earned my attention, and I’ve been playing it daily from the moment I heard it for the first time.
But most of all, the track called "I Close My Eyes", has completely blown me away. At the first break down, I was like "O_O. Only God can create something like that". My body was completely stunned by this piece. :)
Personally, I always "looked down" on Leon. Somehow I felt kind of lost in his style, probably because his sound is so unique, and I was too blind to look for the beauty inside his sound. Maybe you think about his music in a similar way.
Anyway, as I get older, my music knowledge is growing along with everything else. And yet, right after the release of the album, I’ve tried to hear "Summernight Confessions" and "Shimamoto" once more. These tunes brought me to see, that Leon, is a genius. He creates very proggy-techy-uplifty tunes, with a drop of perfectly serious instruments (violins, pianos), no one else does that in today’s world. Leon also shows that he keeps his own glamorous style, no commerciality, no "poppy-trancy"… just pure trance energy… Ladies & Gentleman, if you are looking for the man that creates deep and emotional trance these days, don’t look any further, Leon Bolier is the one :)
The whole album is one giant goose-bumping piece of art. It has definitely changed my opinion about Leon’s production skills. :) And he ended up in my Top 5 Producers right away. :)
I will surely re-think the idea of ‘album of the year’ after this! :)
For more info related to Leon Bolier check out the following links:
www.leonbolier.com
www.myspace.com/leonbolier
www.facebook.com/leonbolierofficial
www.twitter.com/leonbolier
