Plexus Andromeda by Zinkl

Matt Howarth, review from www.soniccuriosity.com:

Fanciful keyboards are tempered by dire e-perc. An overwhelming sense of drama permeates the entire recording, lending the music the air of an epic of sociological proportion. Alien noises conspire with conventional melodics to paint a tale of alien desperation.
This instrumental music tells the story of David Miles who is abducted by aliens who transport him to the stellar constellation of Andromeda, where he is examined and ultimately transformed into an Andromedan. Centuries pass, and humanity starts exploring and colonizing the galaxy. The Andromedans respond to this threat by splitting the former Earthling into several entities and dispatching these back to Earth as a lethal weapon.
Divorced from this tantalizing tale, the music is gripping and enthralling on its own. Zinkl has a way of escalating even the slightest passage into an epic of emotional scope. The keyboards are lively and diverse, mixing festive strains with chords that tremble with ominous portend. Pastoral pieces flow into compositions of novel intrigue that ooze with tension while cavorting with zesty pep. This fusion of melodrama and celebration is something Zinkl excels at. These tunes exemplify that unpredictable quirkiness.
Applying fundamental progrock sensibilities to momentous electronics results in thoroughly dazzling music that is guaranteed to satisfy and thrill.
Since his early youth the keyboardist Anton Zinkl has been an avid reader of science fiction-literature - the weekly published “Perry Rhodan” - series was his first passion before he moved on to the classics by Isaac Asimov or Robert A. Heinlein. Thus it seemed a logical step to Zinkl not only to dedicate his third album to the genre, but also to conceive it as a soundtrack to an imaginary science-fiction-movie. But Zinkl turned the usual working order upside down: First created the music, wanting to be as unbiased as possible. And only then he thougt up to a story, which could be illustrated by the music - like a script to the movie that unfolds before the listerner’s inner eye. Additionally the listener is provided in the booklet with a picture to each of the 12 tracks - a playful game with loose connotations, full of humoureous quotes and hints at the realm of movies (for example “Independence Day” here turns into a “Revelation-Day”!
Still Zinkl’s “Plexus Andromeda” first of all is a piece of music in its own right. Its complexity and diversity ask for very concentrated and attentive listening, but also make it a highly enjoyable and totally unique aural space trip!