Album Review: Infinity Forever Part 1 – Time (The Studio Sessions)

For a time, it appeared Jeramiah Ross might have put Module into permanent hibernation after the release of his last official album Imagineering in 2013. The arrival of the first instalment in the Infinity Forever trilogy puts paid to that theory in no uncertain terms.

The expansively expressive Infinity Forever Part 1 – Time (The Studio Sessions) is epic in its reach both thematically and musically and is the entree to a multi-media concept that’s both ambitious and ingenious, deeply personal and visionary, sparked, in large part by a period of chronic depression and a near death experience.

“It’s a pretty epic sci-fi concept,” Ross said in a recent interview with Muzic.net.nz. “The idea of the way it all works, Nature, Time, Space, The universe. I have built up a story around these characters that are faced with a choice.”

“In a nutshell it’s about a scientist that has an accident and ends up phasing out of reality into another dimension.”

Although Time comes fully formed, these studio ‘sketches’ will evolve as a ‘living process’ into live albums for each album in the trilogy.

It combines his trademark well-tempered piano – the haunting melody on Trust is the perfect setting for a song that opens up like a bottomless pit but also reaches for the stars – and an imaginative palette of electronic textures.

There are pieces that are more earthy and structured such as The Everywhere Man, which again has a gorgeous piano melody and sweetly delicate vocals and orchestrations and Perfectly Still, with its march-along acoustic guitar and steady beat and a heart-breakingly tender lyric, “perfectly still with you by my side when I have nothing to give but to stare in your eyes.”

There’s a lovely lullaby quality to some of the tracks such as My Little Star and The Wish (Lonely Version), evoking memories of a childlike innocence and experiences untouched by suffering. Sometimes the head goes in one direction while the heart is being pulled in another.

Module’s brave new world already works on so many different levels. It’s staggering to think how it might evolve.