Review for Erik Heirman – Course of Love – EP
Facts about the EP „Erik Heirman – Course of Love“
Artist: Erik Heirman
Country of Origin: Switzerland, Zürich
Title: Course of Love
Format: 3 Track EP
Release Date: 21.09.2022
Label: Circle of Influence Records
Available on Apple Music in
24 Bit / 44.1 kHz Hi-Res, stereo
For the German translation of
this review >>> click here <<<
About Erik Heirman
Erik Heirman is a Dutch-South American musician, with residence and family in Switzerland. He currently has two active music projects: Erik Heirman and Setsuna. While Setsuna is dedicated to down-tempo themes, Erik is into melodic techno under his own name.
Setsuna has released two albums on Sine Music: „Spontaneous“ in 2011 and „Evolve“ in 2017. These releases have received airplay on radio stations such as Ibiza Sonica and Klassik FM, and the songs have been featured on leading chill-out compilations worldwide. A continuous mix of Setsuna’s music has made it to 4.7 million streams on YouTube.
His latest project under the name Erik Heirman focuses on deep, hypnotic club sounds, combining elements of melodic techno, deep house and minimal/tech house. His debut EP „DADA“ was released on Sine Music in September 2021.
A new Setsuna EP titled „Zäme“ was released on 2/22/22 on SINE Music.
Starting 8/8/22, Erik Heirman will release a track every week. The first track is titled „Noa“ and was produced together with his oldest son. These tracks will be available for free download on the website and Soundv, and will also be available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Review
I’m sitting in front of my desk about to write the review of Erik Heirman’s terrific EP „Course of Love“. At most I’m thinking scraps of words, I’ve got a writer’s block. In the background Course of Love is playing in the vocal version with 6:54 minutes. The sound has magic, a black magic and projects one word scrap after the other on the wall. „Love“ is suddenly written on the wall, the writing loses its contour, running down the wall in blood red, dripping onto the floor.
The three versions (vocal, radio edit and instrumental) differ only in nuances, but the instrumental version seems a bit static, as the magic of the voice is completely missing. The radio edit is shorter, more compact and seems faster – or is my imagination playing tricks on me right now?
So the vocal version with infinite 6:54 minutes is it definitely? The track does not only project scraps of words on the wall, the track is with its trundling beat the very best soundtrack through the realm of imagination.
With its infinite layers of electronic grains constantly diffusing among themselves, the track makes colors and shapes dance around me, circle in front of my eyes, penetrate my ears, slowly ooze out to my mouth.
Course of Love behaves like a black hole that pulls you with ever increasing speed into this damned black nothingness, you stagger dancing through the event horizon and disappear more and more into the black hell, first your arms, then your upper body, your head, everything of you is … gone.
Course of Love takes you on this unreal, magical morbid trip, – and I like that, I like that a lot, I totally like that, this drifting, floating, spinning, staggering. The sound is magical, something is constantly accelerating your journey, and you lose your shape.
Course of Love is like the soundtrack to your journey through the black hole, searching for the one you can’t find anymore. Course of Love, just what you can describe with:
- The path of love
- Progression of love
- Circle of love
- Trail of Love
- Dance of Love
And no matter what translation you choose, Course of Love ends up taking you 6:54 minutes to an end point that was never your destination. That is the Course of Love.
The whole thing is a waste of time.
Final sequence: The sound gets louder, the louder you hear it, the better the track gets, in the end you materialize on a lonely exo-planet somewhere in a shitty habitable zone. Much too late you realize that it is Earth in the year 2222, there is no more life on this planet.
You turn up the stereo and Course of Love writes the words „She’s gone“ on the wall, the writing loses outline, runs blood red down the wall and drips on the floor.
„Where are you,“ you ask, „I’m looking for you,“ for the first time you admit it to yourself, „I love you,“ for the first time you admit it to HER, „I love you.“ Blood-red ice crystals write the words in the fog that gently surrounds you, but the writing loses its contour, is beading blood-red down the wall of fog, slowly dripping onto the ground all around you in a string of halting leaps in time. Answers never were and never will be.
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Resolution
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Höhen / Treble
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Mitten / Mids
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Bass
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Räumlichkeit / Spaciality
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Music
Zusammenfassung
Course of Love by Erik Heirmann is a great EP. The vocal version is grandly arranged, with multi-layered electronic sound layers, almost hypnotic vocals and fascinating layers of tension. But: where do I place this track stylistically? Sure, you could assign it to the field of electro-pop, but I’ll just call it psychedelic house because of the hypnotic character of the track. The sound quality over the entire frequency range is excellent, the EP was mastered in 24 bit / 44.1 kHz.
Mein Testequipment:
Studio 1 (High End):
- 2 x System Audio SA Mantra 50 (front)
- 1x System Audio SA Mantra 10 AV (center)
- 2x System Audio SA Legend 5 (Rear)
- 1 x System Audio Saxo 10 (Subwoofer)
- 4 x Onkyo SKH-410 (B) (Dolby Atmos)
- Auralic Altair (Audio Streaming Client mit max. 32 Bit / 384 kHz)
- NVIDIA Shield Pro mit Plex, Kodi (max 192 kHz für Audio, Tidal (MQA Streaming Client)
- AppleTV 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
- Amazon Cube 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos (restricted), HDR, Dolby Vision
- Panasonic DP-UB9004 (4K UHD Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
- Oppo UDP-203 (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
- Yamaha CX-A5100 (Preamp) 4K, Dolby Atmos, Hi-res
- Yamaha MX -A5000 (Power Amp)
- Sony KD-55A1 (TV) 4K OLED, HDR, Dolby Vision