When merely being the UK's best synth band wasn't enough...

RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL
RAIN FALLS IN GREY (Rune 256) CD 60m
TIME & MOTION (Rune 298/299) 2CD 157m

Somehow I missed reviewing RAIN FALLS IN GREY from 2007 in my last Cuneiform round-up, probably because it's one that took some time to assimilate. Also, I think I originally put it aside after their rather disappointing SEPTENTRIONAL. You see this is no regular RMI album. In fact it's not a synth album either! The clue is that it's dedicated to Syd Barrett, although nowhere on the actual cover does it say so, only on the wrap-around stuck to the case - which I seem to have lost - it says "...a sincere and moving tribute to Syd Barrett". The cover art is by Daevid Allen, the Gong hero who often said that Syd Barrett taught him all he knew, or something like that!
At the three Radio Massacre International (RMI) gigs I've attended they did some awesome space-rock numbers. This was due to a shift in instrumentation from the more usual synth-sequencer trio (with occasional other instruments) to a hybrid rock band. I think I'd give a better idea by listing the line-up here: Steve Dinsdale (keyboards, drums, percussion, glockenspiel, looper, vocals), Gary Houghton (guitars, glissando guitar, synthesizer, looper, vocals), Duncan Goddard (keyboards, bass guitars, Mellotron, p3 sequencer), plus guests: Martin Archer (saxophones, bass clarinet, recorder) and Cyndee Lee Rule (electric violin). Of course this no horrible pop album like the staggeringly terrible Tangerine Dream Barrett homage!
To me, it starts out sounding like some lost psych freak-out band of the French 1970's underground, a bit Gong, a bit Lard Free, largely that's down to the surprise saxophone we hear, puffing and grooving along with the music. As it goes on, more Floyd elements enter, although nothing is directly quoted - it's clever like that - it ends as much like a mix of THE SKY MOVES SIDEWAYS era Porcupine Tree and OCEAN era Eloy.
Steve mentioned to me Electric Orange whilst listening to the previous track and there's even more of that here in Bettr'r Day-s as it gradually gets more synthi it also gets a lot more Steve Hillage like with the looping guitar over a growing swell of Mellotron.
In track 4, the aptly titled Syd we get a lot more Barrett flavour, elements of Interstellar Overdrive meet? Yes, it's that nothing exactly conundrum again, all in a 3 minute slot!
After this the shift is more towards Pink Floyd circa WISH YOU WERE HERE, an album that was also a dedication to Syd Barrett. Here we have several different takes on ideas/themes radically re-adapted from Shine On You Crazy Diamond, first with a Porcupine Tree type groove that threatens to go into a version of Welcome To The Machine but never does, followed by more diversions, ending with ...Far Away which moves via a vaguely Hendrix/Gilmour guitar intro to a ghost of another Shine On... theme, becoming what sounds like Klaus Schulze playing with the Far East Family Band, before descending into lovely restrained spacey end.

Recorded February to June 2009 Radio Massacre International's latest opus TIME & MOTION partly sees the band revisiting 2007's RAIN FALLS IN GREY and again features guest appearances by Martin Archer on wind instruments & electronics.
The opening Kairos feels like a direct mixture of mid 1970's Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream circa CYCLONE. Martin's sax intro, and further solos in The Clockwork Time Dragon give this the feel of some Mergener & Weisser (aka Software) from the early 1980's, even the sequencer has the same sprightly nimbleness. The tail-off weird ending, with lots of piano-verb like cavernous sludgy sounds, acts as a nice bridge to Aeon which is basically a big open restrained picture-music panorama topped by a guitar solo. Chronos is the first track we get in patent RMI "We can do TD better that TD" mode transporting us back to a Tangerine Dream circa 1976 gig, but in RMI's own fashion - a theme/idea carried on in Equatorial Pitch. Disc 1 closes with Fission Ships Pt.1 a 15 minute slap of abstract deep-space music with more than a nod to ATEM era Tangerine Dream - wonderfully deep stuff!
Disc 2 opens with Maybe A Last Look At Joe's House another track that sounds like a lost Porcupine Tree jam circa 1995, another 14 minutes of classic space-rock, it moves seamlessly into Fission Ships Pt.2 another big abstract slab, this time 24 minutes worth of slightly brighter melodic tones and drones, eventually leading to a Mellotron underpinned guitar coda. Nine:Four:One opens inside a deep cavernous void and meanders through various phases (too many to include in a review like this) constantly leading the listener on as to where it will go next. Well it eventually, via a shimmering Ash Ra Tempel like bridge, runs into 30 Years (Slight Return) which treks back to RUBYCON era Tangerine Dream with swelling Mellotron sounds and, following a majestic guitar solo, the sax lead and sequencer-line reprises The Clockwork Time Dragon from disc 1 before going headlong into RICOCHET groove that transmutes to CYCLONE with Martin adopting the Steve Jolliffe role.
Excellent from start to end then, and with a lot of new ideas we've never heard from RMI before. Goes to show synth music isn't dead!
 - from Audion #58 - Cuneiform label feature, Autumn 2013