The Lazy Nine

Following a near decade-long hiatus that has seen him move on from the dancefloor commanding bombast of his T Power moniker, Marc Royal returns to the musical fray with 'The Lazy Nine', the debut album released under his own name. Having relocated to the Americas, leaving his pop chart-invading dalliances with club culture far behind, Marc has spent the last ten years relearning his relationship with music, while cultivating a clear, distinct and personal new sound.
From album-opener Abstand's Thomas Newman-esque first chord it's quickly apparent that a seismic rebirth has occurred as Marc's music drifts towards the peripheries of minimalism without ever fully straying into system music territory. The warmth of his piano progressions play against the lysergic expanses of the album's synthscapes, the tribal chanting and occasional vocal samples; repetition and iteration provide backbone as a new more lenitive throb takes centre stage. As the album progresses through Rise, Résoudre and Veneris, the twisting figures and hypnotising modulations intensify, plateauing with Caritas Mechanica's amaranthine cycling motif and Infinite Folding Being's pleasantly knitted, pleaching forms, before the mesmeric drones of and the plaintiff piano of Der Faule Neun bring The Lazy Nine to a close.
Investigating a whole new continent of aural vistas, Marc Royal's latest musical expeditions might flirt with the Avant Garde but they never become mired in technicalities that render so much experimental music soulless. The Lazy Nine is a record imbued with personality and heart and soul and is an intriguing sign post for future works.