Artist description Professional Dark EBM project based in Tokyo and signed to Zeitgeist Records.

Music Style Dark EBM - Darkwave - Classical

Musical Influences Velvet Acid Christ - Diary of Dreams - Morgion - Recoil - Tool - Hocico - ESR - :wumpscut: - Flesh Field - Front 242 - Front Line Assembly - Devin Townsend - Rachmaninov - Kevorkian Death Cycle - Negative Format -

Artist History We have moved all Biographies, News, Video, and other MP3 files to our official site: www.mystraltide.com/enter_oct.html

Group Members Ivan Bullock

Instruments Roland EP7 Digital Piano - Alesis QSR - Behringer Mixing Desk - Waldorf Micro Q - Roland MDC1 - Samplers, Drum Machines, Sequencers

Albums Moiety (2000) - Etchings (2000) - Altercated (2001) - Whirlpool of Souls (2002)

Press Reviews NEW EMPIRE (www.newempire.com) FEB 2002 - ALBUM OF THE MONTH "Whirlpool of Souls" by Mystral Tide: An album made in Australia, recorded with minimal equipment in Tokyo featuring danceable EBM and almost classic, melancholic arrangements done with piano- and guitar-sounds is something special I'd say and so it is my task to bring this unknown Dark Wave & EBM-act from Tokyo to the light. The musician is not Japanese Ivan Bullock doesn't even sound like it. A very intensive track is Sinner with the hectic piano and the soundtrack-like, epic synthy-layers. Only a very soft rhythm in the background makes up a fragile skeleton for the oppressing, powerful music. It is followed by the breathtaking Isolation. The only minus here is the weak production of the album. It is a little bit too quiet and especially this track lives of the driving rhythm-structure. Almost Jungle-like technoid beats combined with an enormous bombastic sound of synthetic strings and again a piano. The dark speech-sample is a perfect addition and makes the whole track really a killer. A very wild and loud track is called Perseverant. Bombastic sounds like choirs and the pressure of a galloping beat combined with samples of horses and only whispered voices make it my favourite on the album. A silent, melancholic track is Creation with some rattling and whisteling sounds, string-arrangements and a sadly dripping piano. Finally the album holds two rare and unreleased tracks (well, I guess if you consider the level of reputation of this project, all tracks are rare) as add-on. The whole music appears instrumental. No disturbing vocals here. If there are vocals in the tracks they are hidden between the sound. Like distant whispers, used like an additional instrument and not to shout some meaning into the world. Wow, this album is good! It is really a joy to listen to the complex, atmospheric and catchy sounds of Mystral Tide. How the different real instruments are mixed with the electronic part of the music is unique and the whole sound appears homogenous and perfectly balanced. The sound is warm, dark, almost European and maybe you can find the influences of a megapolis like Tokyo in the technologically interpreted melancholy of the music. A sad, brilliant masterpiece. And don't wonder: the CD has 16 tracks but there are only 15 songs. Track 14 is 29 seconds of silence so it doesn't count. I also substracted one point in the rating because of the below average production. ELECTROAGE(http://www.electroage-music.com/) MAR 2002 ALBUM REVIEW "Whirlpool of Souls" by Mystral Tide: Mystral Tide is a project from Ivan Bullock, an Australian currently living in Tokyo who delivers here a very intriguing album. Whirlpool of Souls is perhaps the middle point between darkwave and EBM, with an hint of ambient and classical; giving an unique and engaging work of electronic music. Whirlpool of Souls has an undeniable soundtrack-like persona, and this album's facet is where resides the strength behind Mystral Tide. The melancholic piano of Abandoned opens the album, rapidly followed by a superb Lucid mixing orchestral movements with a distant EBM groove. Removed is the perfect representation of Mystral Tide movie-like ambiences, atmospheric synths are floating around whispered speech samples, melancholic piano and guitar echoes. More classical oriented and beautifully rendered are the three parts of Regression; while Isolation and especialy Return lead more toward technofied EBM with melodic piano and a subtle dose of ambient. The whole album is a tenebrous affair, where smoky ambiences and electronic rhythms collide together for a surprising result. Even more surprising regarding Bullock's minimal equipement used for the album, and Whirlpool of Souls just suffers from a sligthly unequal mastering and post-production. Rare are those artists who are making such an impression with a first album, but behind Mystral Tide there is a true musician who isn't afraid of breaking genre's boundaries. The music is superbly crafted and the continuous melted ambience of beauty and fear makes of Whirlpool of Souls an impressive work of electronics.

Additional Info Zeitgeist Records: www.zeitgeistrecords.com

Location Tokyo, Shibuya - Japan

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).