artist: Sonic Adventure Project country of origin: Austria style(s): Progressive pop/rock, ambient trance essential releases: Exergonic (2004, Starmill Music)

Melody can be a dangeous thing. The downtempo world is awash with melodies sublimely beautiful on one hand (Global Communication) and on the other hand music so sugar-coated it makes your teeth ache (new age, anyone?). Melody might be the easiest of elements to work with but it really is the hardest to master. Into this realm has ventured Sonic Adventure Project, two unassuming Austrians with backgrounds in rock, pop and production for various bands. On this debut album together Thomas Veihbock and Peter Kollerer have taken melody to seriously lofty heights. They arrange their instrumental tunes into a variety of shapes from ambient piano solos to electro-rock to emotional slow trance grooves, all tied together with highly sensitive sound design. You might call it trance-pop, except that to evoke such a creatively suspect hybrid would be insulting.

Those schooled in the sounds of vintage Berlin-school electronica might catch glimpses of its legacy here. The layered melodies of "Circuit" and the epic "Pink Synth" recall Tangerine Dream's best work from the early 80's but with significant differences: the rock-flavoured drum programming is looser and and the overall sound a little warmer. "Waters In Motion" is a wistful solo piano piece bedded with gorgeous strings. A few tracks like "Sitarian Supernova" are less successful, bordering on the kind of overblown prog that anyone playing around with this much melody always risks lapsing into. Still, they're exceptions to the rule. Exergonic is a beautiful - there's no other word for it.

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