Category: Reviews (Page 65 of 201)

MICHAEL ROTHER Dreaming

6 September 2020 /

With a 50 year plus music career, Michael Rother is one of modern German music’s great trailblazers. A founder member of NEU! with Klaus Dinger, Rother helped to pioneer Kosmische Musik.

There was also the HARMONIA project with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of CLUSTER which led to him becoming the original first choice of David Bowie to play guitar on ‘Heroes’, although that promising partnership never became reality. When NEU! split after three albums in 1975, Rother embarked on an acclaimed solo career which over nine albums gave him prestige as Germany’s answer to Mike Oldfield.

Although best known as a guitarist, Rother’s last album ‘Remember (The Great Adventure)’ released in 2004 was an all-electronic affair and saw him experimenting with vocals from Sophie Joiner née Williams and his now label boss Herbert Grönemeyer. It was Joiner who provided the lead vocals to the album’s best song ‘He Said’ while there was a duet between herself and Grönemeyer on ‘Morning After (Loneliness)’, one of the other highlights.

One of the reasons that it has taken Rother so long to record a new album has been the popular demand for him to play live, thanks to a renewed interest in NEU! initiated by their album reissue programme by Grönemeyer via his Grönland Records in 2001. But the worldwide lockdown left Rother alone at his home studio in Forst by the River Weser in Lower Saxony. Missing his Italian partner and unable to do shows, his need to express himself was channelled into a new record.

Much of what has now become the ‘Dreaming’ album actually dates back to a number of sketches originally made during the ‘Remember (The Great Adventure)’ sessions to which Sophie Joiner contributed her vocals to, but were not used or completed.

As a result, the voice of the now mother of four appears on seven of the nine tracks. Meanwhile Rother has focussed his time to add his guitar and other layers to flinish these electronically derived fragments.

The ‘Dreaming’ title track does as it suggests and affirms Rother’s intention to bring more guitars in as water shimmers in the background. Meanwhile Sophie Joiner repeats the phrase by way of a vocal hook before it is reversed and treated to a mind-bending effect.

The electronic pulsing of ‘Bitter Tang’ perhaps can be seen as a natural development of ‘Morning After (Loneliness)’ with the sparing six string delving into Rother’s past in a manner reminiscent of his classic Conny Plank produced album trilogy of ‘Flammende Herzen’, ‘Sterntaler’ and ‘Katzenmusik’.

Paradoxically “singing loud”, Sophie Joiner provides whispered and spoken passages to ‘Fierce Wind Blowing’ because “nothing matters” and the piece as a whole recalls ‘Sombre Reptiles’ from Brian Eno’s ‘Another Green World’, especially with its layers of sustained guitars and gentle but essential rhythm construction.

A wholly electronic instrumental, the hypnotic ‘Wopp-Wopp’ plays along with gentle percussive textures and lovely choral synths. Sophie Joiner’s vocals return on ‘Hey-Hey’ and have a solemn intense air which veers occasionally towards Björk as a deep ethnic mood is in place across eight minutes to compliment her using a hazy psychedelic template.

Then Sophie Joiner rather fatalistically states “this could be the end”, a surprise comes with ‘Lovely Mess’. Driven by an understated bongo mantra as part of a dub treated soundtrack, it is something that the late Andrew Weatherall would have been proud to construct for ONE DOVE.

With more minimal guitar and recalling Rother’s less lauded Fairlight period which included the ‘Lust’, ‘Süssherz Und Tiefenschärfe’ and ‘Traumreisen’ albums, ‘Out In The Rain’ sees Sophie Joiner almost turn into Suzanne Vega. Cautiously joyous, she waxes lyrical about how “everyone else is crazy” and that she enjoys staying in to sing loud.

Another wholly electronic instrumental piece, ‘Gravitas’ is almost ambient but its enchanting textures build and repeat like a mantra until it becomes like a cascade of church bells. But closing with the wistfully serene ‘Quiet Dancing’, Sophie Joiner’s wonderfully airy delivery is sweetened with Rother’s maestro E-bow and delicate single note six string over a gentle backbone that would sound great on ‘Twin Peaks’.

Those who have enjoyed the recent virtuoso live performances of Michael Rother with Hans Lampe and Franz Bargmann in recent years should be aware that as with his previous solo albums since ‘Lust’, ‘Dreaming’ is very much a sedate listening experience unlike those energetic gigs.

With the idea that dreams are what the brain generates at night to cleanse the mind of stress by connecting to positive emotions, this album has captured a guarded optimism as a reaction to the melancholic isolation has undoubtedly affected everyone.

In difficult times, ‘Dreaming’ is comforting with its hints of hope, romance, escapism and nostalgia all in one musical package.

‘Dreaming’ is released by Grönland Records in vinyl LP and digital formats

The album is also available as part of the 7CD boxed set ‘Solo II’ also released by Grönland Records

http://www.michaelrother.de/en/

https://www.facebook.com/michaelrother.neu.harmonia/

https://twitter.com/_MichaelRother_

https://www.instagram.com/michaelrother.neu.harmonia/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Rick Burger
6th September 2020

MATT BELLAMY Behold, The Glove

4 September 2020 /


MUSE’s use of glowing artwork by Kyle Lambert of ‘Stranger Things’ fame on their eighth album ‘Simulation Theory’ in 2018 sent sections of the Synthwave community into meltdown.

There were cries that they had “stolen the aesthetics and concept” and how “it’s not relevant to their sound”! But WHAM! had Peter Saville designed sleeves and never sounded like NEW ORDER or OMD. However, their touch paper is likely to be lit even further with the video to ‘Behold, The Glove’, an enjoyable solo synth instrumental by front man Matt Bellamy in the vein of Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre.

The video directed by Lance Drake is part of MUSE’s lavish ‘Simulation Theory’ film which “follows a team of scientists as they investigate the source of a paranormal anomaly appearing around the world. Blurring the lines between narrative and concert film, virtual and reality”.

Reminiscent of the closing scene from the 1968 film ‘Planet Of The Apes’ directed by Franklin J Schaffner, Bellamy is seen crawling around a desolate landscape when he finds what looks like a Nintendo power glove in the sand. Upon wearing it, it allows him to master the rather obscure and expensive Schmidt 8 Voice Polyphonic synth, a snip at 20,000 Euros!

One could be mistaken for thinking this is from ‘Live at the Necropolis: Lords of Synth’, the affectionate synth duel parody of Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Wendy Carlos. While MUSE are known for their pomp-laden stadium rock, there has always been a synthesizer enthusiast within Bellamy’s psyche.

While a Roland Juno 60 has been there since the band’s first album ‘Showbiz’, a Buchla 200e modular synthesizer was part of the armoury for the 2006 album ‘Black Holes & Revelations’ which featured ‘Map Of The Problematique’, a song quite clearly influenced by DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’. More recently,

ERASURE’s lawyers were probably knocking on the door of their tour bus for the similarities between ‘Something Human’ and ‘A Little Respect’. But the synth-friendly combo who have been most key to the sound of MUSE has been ULTRAVOX. It’s not difficult to imagine Midge Ure singing ‘Starlight’ while ‘Vienna’ has been borrowed not once but twice, first on ‘Apocalypse Please’ where the middle eight bass synth section was more or less lifted note-for-note and the second time was more obviously with the drum intro to ‘Guiding Light’.

‘Behold, The Glove’ is available now on the usual digital platforms

The ‘Simulation Theory’ film is available digitally from http://muse.mu/film

https://www.facebook.com/muse

https://twitter.com/MattBellamy

Text by Chi Ming Lai with thanks to Peter Fitzpatrick
4th September 2020

U96 & WOLFGANG FLÜR Transhuman

2 September 2020 /


Former KRAFTWERK percussionist Wolfgang Flür needs no introduction.

But the German music project U96 is still best known in the UK for a 1991 techno rework of the theme to the Second World War film epic ‘Das Boot’ composed by Klaus Doldinger.

Formed by DJ Alex Christensen, U96 also included a production team named MATIZ comprising Ingo Hauss, Helmut Hoinkis, and Hayo Lewerentz. U96 were to go on to have a number of Europop oriented hits including ‘Love See No Colour’ featuring Ingo Hauss on lead vocals.

After that, the story got confusing with Alex Christensen returning as U96 in 2006 without MATIZ. Then after a stint reviving BOYTRONIC with James Knights for the ‘Jewel’ album in 2017, Ingo Hauss and Hayo Lewerentz did a 2018 ‘Reboot’ of U96 without Christensen and Hoinkis.

One track featuring on the corresponding long player was ‘Zukunftsmusik’ (translated as “future music”) featuring guest vocals by Wolfgang Flür. Stark and Teutonic with robotic vocoder aesthetics and Flür’s distinctive vocal, the union was equal to ‘Activity Of Sound’, Flür’s collaboration with iEUROPEAN from 2014.

This ultimately planted the seed for this ‘Transhuman’ collaborative double album and ‘Zukunftsmusik’ reappears in an altered ‘Radiophonique’ edit which luckily is not that drastically different from the original version.

A three way musical partnership with a number of melodies created using computer algorithms, the album’s theme is the transformation of people through technology and its interference on Planet Earth. The opening title salvo ‘Transhuman’ is a marvellous slice of technopop with self-referencing namechecks, rich in klassische elektronische Musik that will forever be associated with Kling Klang.

More metronomic, ‘Hamburg – Düsseldorf’ is a trancier club excursion with the title phrase repeated using various vocal source techniques. ‘Specimen’ though is less impressive in its quest for atmospheric techno, but ‘Clone’ is more energetic and threatening although this really could be any instrumental European dance track from the last 30 years.

‘To The Limit’ recalls the Bernard Sumner / Johnny Marr side project ELECTRONIC and the hypnotic bassline from the track ‘Freefall’ and then partly morphs into some of the ‘Electronica’ adventures of Jean-Michel Jarre within the more dance DJ end of the spectrum and BOYZ NOISE’s ‘The Time Machine’ in particular.

‘Zufallswelt’ meaning “random world” takes a less frantic approach which adopts some Far Eastern flavours. Flür returns on lead vocals for ‘Planet In Fever’ and although cut from a similar cloth to ‘Zukunftsmusik’, it is perhaps not as fully realised although the overall sound design is an aural pleasure.

Speaking of which, ‘Shifted Reality’ is very pretty with the sparking ambience of its arpeggios while ‘Kreiselkompass’ is a pleasing second cousin, although again less fulfilled.

Meanwhile ‘Data Landscape’ provides a satisfying percussive tempo to the KOMPUTER pop proceedings and ‘Transhumanist’ is moodier with its sampled grunt but still melodic, glistening away within its crispy backdrop.

‘Sexersizer’ attempts to get saucy with a synthetic female voice asking the listener to “just call my number – you have the choice” over a hard throbbing house bassline, but it doesn’t really get to the point. Similarly ‘Maschinenraum’ utilises a sombre-paced sequencer engine room but the end result is more incidental.

Closing ‘Transhuman’, Ingo Hauss takes the lead vocals on ‘Let Yourself Go’ and it is the Europop U96 of old and anyone who ever danced to ‘Love See No Colour’ in a Hanover disco back in 1993 will adore this one. And if once wasn’t enough, a modern EDM remix by BEATSOLE of ‘Let Yourself Go’ complete with drops comes as an enjoyable bonus, although it sticks out like a sore thumb.

At sixteen tracks, this is a long record and when ‘Transhuman’ excels, it does it very well. But it is stylistically a mixed bag. But does this matter in these days of playlists, when a rather good eight track album can be knocked up with a running order of one’s own choosing?

This is a welcome collaboration between two generations of electronic music but in an attempt to appeal to two quite different audiences, despite the spiritual connection, listeners may find themselves needing to take sides.

Covering a wide variety of niches, KRAFTWERK and U96 fans will find their favourite moments but some careful curation and fewer tracks may have made this collection a more rounded experience.

‘Transhuman’ is released on 4th September 2020 by Radikal Records / UNLTD Recordings as a double red vinyl LP, CD and download

http://www.u96reboot.de/

https://www.facebook.com/U96reboot

https://www.facebook.com/musiksoldat

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Markus Luigs
2nd September 2020

PAGE Puls

31 August 2020 /

Photo by Jonas Karlsson

Of late, Swedish poptronica duo PAGE have well and truly fallen under the spell of the imperial Synth Britannia era.

The releases in the last few years from Eddie Bengtsson and Marina Schiptjenko like ‘Det Är Ingen Vacker Värld Men Det Råkar Vara Så Det Ser Ut’, ‘Start’, ‘Fakta För Alla’ and ‘Under Mitt Skinn’ have clearly been influenced by imperial phase ULTRAVOX, TUBEWAY ARMY, VISAGE and DRAMATIS.

‘Puls’ (‘Pulse’), an energetic track from their most recent album ‘Fakta För Alla’, gets a period makeover in a new video clip complete with waveforms. Recorded at Gothenburg’s Sticky Fingers last fall, it is made up of out-takes from a forthcoming live DVD naturally entitled ‘Fakta För Alla Göteborg’.

The track itself drops in a higher glam quotient with a stomping rhythm line and saw waves lined up in catchy phrases. Strings and soaring synths point to Billy Currie as a source of inspiration, but there is nothing derivative about the stylings.

With PAGE very much in the Moog, the ‘Under Mitt Skinn’ EP issued in June included a cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Tracks’, a Swedish version of which was on ‘Det Är Ingen Vacker Värld Men Det Råkar Vara Så Det Ser Ut’. But the opening instrumental ‘Saint Anastase’ was fully in the vein of Vox ‘N’ Foxx.

Having adapted the ULTRAVOX B-side ‘Alles Klar’ as ‘Allt Är Klart’ previously with his SISTA MANNEN PÅ JORDEN project in 2007, these electronic pioneers are very much in the musical DNA of Eddie Bengtsson and this re-exploration of his roots has enabled him to produce some of the best work of his career which began with PAGE’s debut single ‘Dansande Man’ in 1983.

‘Puls’ is from the album ‘Fakta För Alla’ released by Energy Rekords as a CD and vinyl LP, available from https://hotstuff.se/page/x-7640

https://www.facebook.com/PageElektroniskPop

https://www.instagram.com/page_svensk_pop/

Text by Simon Helm and Chi Ming Lai
31st August 2020

KALEIDA Odyssey

30 August 2020 /

UK/US-based electro pop duo KALEIDA comprising of vocalist Christina Wood and producer Cicely Goulder are best known for their song ‘Think’ which was featured in the major motion picture ‘John Wick’.

The other starting point for listeners new to the act would be to seek out their radical rework of NENA’s ‘99 Luftballons’ which takes the original bombastic synth rock track into a far more introspective direction, appearing on the soundtrack to the Cold War spy movie ‘Atomic Blonde’. ‘Odyssey’ is the second album by the duo and in places draws comparisons with the vocal stylings of FLORENCE & THE MACHINE and KOSHEEN’s Sian Evans.

The eponymously titled album opener provides a slow burning beginning with subtle piano textures and driving handclaps and bass. The single ‘Other Side’ follows next and is another slow builder with interjected Simmons drums and multi-layered vocals from Wood.

In the words of the band “This was one of those tracks that just had the feeling right from the start and expressed a kind of creative hope we were both feeling.” Slivers of vocal samples are intricately meshed with subtle synth lines, echoed percussion and a downtempo middle section which euphorically builds back into the chorus hook at the end.

What neatly differentiates KALEIDA from most of their electropop contemporaries is their refusal to rely upon ‘stock’ electronic sounds in their productions. Instead, keyboardist Goulder goes for a far more textured, reverb-driven approach and this certainly gives the band a more contemporary forward-looking edge with their production aesthetic. ‘The News’ is the most stripped back track on ‘Odyssey’; with the exception of some John Carpenter-style synth brass, the instrumentation is a mixture of pianos and strings and light reverbed drums.

‘Feed Us Some’ rhythmically takes its cues from Latin music with an opening syncopated piano bass riff and samples which cleverly take the listener on a virtual walk down a street with car horn sounds punctuating Wood’s vocals. The early half of the track is stripped back with an almost KRAFTWERK minimalism, there is no overproduction here and half-way through the introduction of a more electronic bass sound and reversed samples evoke the atmosphere of early UK dubstep producer BURIAL. The South American vibe is continued to the track’s conclusion with more piano layers joining the production.

Just when it feels like ‘Odyssey’ would become overtly languid and downtempo, ‘Long Noon’ provides a welcome change of pace, upping the tempo with some 4/4 techno-styled drum machine programming and stabbing string synths. Wood’s “how long until your shadow meets the noon?” hook is arguably the strongest chorus vocal on the album and certainly helps to pull the album away from becoming too ambient and ‘backgroundy’ sounding.

After the slow-moving ‘Josephine’ and ‘Fake’, album closer ‘No Computer’ (possibly a dig at acts that get a little too sidetracked with their Digital Audio Workstations?) again re-shifts the album up a gear and introduces a Balearic electronic techno feel with Latin percussion. Featured sounds flit in and out and are swamped in large reverbs with the whole production beautifully mixed over the epic six minute length of its duration.

Throughout ‘Odyssey’, Christina Wood’s vocals are outstanding (not something that can be said of many current UK synth/electronic acts!), but are only hampered by how similar she sounds to other singers – the comparisons with Florence Welch and also in places Beth Gibbons from PORTISHEAD are hard to avoid making.

With electronic music becoming easier and easier to make with the proliferation of software and hardware available, what KALEIDA are doing here is admirable as they are trying hard not to follow the pack. They have a definite sound, which the listener will either embrace wholeheartedly or move along as on an initial listen, it can be hard to differentiate between some of the tracks…

But those that do get sucked into their world will find much to love and the release of ‘Odyssey’ should see Wood and Goulder hopefully exposed to a much wider and more diverse audience.

‘Odyssey’ is released by Lex Records, available as a CD, grey vinyl LP and download direct from https://kaleida.bandcamp.com/

https://www.kaleidamusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KALEIDAMUSIC/

https://twitter.com/kaleidamusik

https://www.instagram.com/kaleidamusic/

https://open.spotify.com/album/4vZeWOJN0hdllQPEMpbmrk

Text by Paul Boddy
30th August 2020

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