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QUANTUM FANTAY: Ugisiunsi

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After the successful debut cd Agapanthusterra, Pete Mush has come up with the successor with an even stranger name as the first one. The band Quantum Fantay has gained some fame abroad, especially in Germany, proven by the positive reactions in the prominent rock magazine Eclipsed as well as by their presence on the upcoming Burg Herzberg festival, when you see which names appear on the line up, you can only have respect for what this guys from Belgium have achieved. And the new album has the same level of quality, if course you can find the same ingredients as before: electronic instrumental music, supported by a heavy rhythm section and some ‘greasy’ guitars. Their main sources of inspiration are Ozric Tentacles, Marillion, Hawkwind and music styles like world music, rock, dub, reggae and psychedelic music. Especially the last style appears to be the main influence, they pretend their music makes hallucinating drugs unnecessary, this is really a positive message towards young people.

The beginning tune of the title track seems to come right from one of the albums of Jean-Michel Jarre, but the 'heavy' guitars and later on the ‘dramatic sounding’ flute bring up immediately an Ozric feeling. New on this album is the short presence of female voices, I would prefer some more of this on a next album, because instrumental music is not always ‘easy’ for the listener. Nevertheless 'Ugisiunsi' delivers enough variation to keep it interesting, the pace of the songs is very diversified, like for instance in Forehead Echo, where after a quit ambient introduction the middle part even has a metal feeling. 'Snowballs in Ghostlands' contains a lot of progressive rock influences, the fragments of flute remind very much of Camel.

In ‘March of the Buffelario’ it becomes clear that the band sound much more mature and tighter than before, it is mainly driven by the fantastic work on synthesizer of Pete Mush, on this track one can hear a mix of Jarre and Wakeman. This March is certainly one of the highlights on the album.

In ‘Lunar’ Srdian shows his excellent technique in a beautiful guitar solo, successor Dario will have no problems with it, considering his adoration for AOR. After some 4 minutes the music stops during 2 minutes, then continues in an up tempo progressive piece.

Quantum Fantay (actually it had to be Fantasy, but a typing mistake was the cause of the current band name) has taken a next step in a general acknowledgement in the world of (progressive) music, certainly it is a music style, not appealing to every music lover. But within this style they are top of the bill, therefore my high quotation. And I want also to mention the beautiful artwork, well done.

Musicians

Pieter 'Pete Mush' Van den Broeck : synthesizers, vocoder

Wouter 'Jaro' De Geest : bass

Gino 'Bartolini' Verhaegen : drums

Karel 'Charles Sla' Slabbaert : flute

Srdjan 'Sergio' Vucic : guitars

Jolien 'Jol' De Maesschalk : vocals on 'Ugisiunsi'

1. Ugisiunsi (7:29)
   Blocktail (4:45)

2. Forehead Echo (4:46)

3. Snowballs In Ghostlands (5:14)

4. Nick Shlut (7:35)

5. March of the Buffelario (8:25)

6. Autumn Landscapes (6:32)

7. Lunar (11:30)

Quantum Fantay: Agapanthusterra (2005)

Ugisiunsi (2007)

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Last updated: 20 mei 2007 .
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