One man becomes a parent, the other enters a convent and the third discovers a new instrument: the path to far-reaching changes in the creative world is as diffuse as it is unpredictable. For years Markus Bratusa, mastermind of Phi, has looked for the golden ratio – or, as they say in his native Vienna, Austria: der Goldene Schnitt (“the golden cut”) – in the musical context: the perfect mixture of rock n’ roll and artistic sophistication. The new album has everything: more focus, more detail, more polyrhythm and delicately woven complexity. Cycles displays more epic width, more grandiose melodies, more thrill, more heaviness – and ultimately more resolution. All that remains of that “golden cut” in the finger is an insignificant scar – and a fascinating album.
