The elephant in the... analogue vs. digital synth debates

There have been decades of debates (and even pontifications) about analogue synthesizers being "better" than digital ones. In the rational cases the comparisons were made within the confines of some specific context of behavioural aspects or particular sonic identity for particular sub-genres of (electronic or other) music. However, in most cases cases a central aspect was ignored or side-stepped. 

After decades of sound synthesis evolution with myriad different methods opening many different creative avenues and even creating new workflows, it is remarkable that one still has to point at the tacit, ginormous, and blindingly fluorescent elephant in the room.

Let's first quickly jolt down what is not worth digging into when one wants to introduce this elephant, because the fallacy is far more fundamental than the following technical details. So no, this will not dig into details of:

• The evolution of computational power, thus mathematical abilities, too, which rendered decades-old arguments about accuracy of signal representation, oscillator behaviours, characteristics of digital filters, and effect chains factually out of date and/or blatantly unaware of current realities. The fundamental problem of these debates is not in the area of who can hear what analogue imperfection, warmth, charming instability, smoothness etc. in true analogue gear when compared to analogue modeling synths. 
• Coupled with the above, the evolution of physical modeling (of circuits and electroacoustic phenomena) arrived at a point where one could specify in even the age of a circuit - and produce remarkable emulations of the original analogue version. Again, any measurable or perceivable differences are again unrelated to the central problem. 
• Subjective preferences in work flows and nostalgia (e.g. about the ephemerality that comes from those work flows). Again, these have nothing to do with the particular, very large, elephant in the room even when there are valid rational aspects (e.g. pros and cons of instabilities, the need or lack of need for instant recall etc.)

Now then... about that elephant... 

Well, to make its presence disturbingly obvious, let's temporarily take a seemingly bizarre step, even leap, far outside the world of sound synthesis. Let us venture a bit into the history of painting - and, within that, the history of pigments and painting techniques. 

Although the use of oil paints dates back to ancient times, the phenomenal revolution that changed everything came only in the 15th century - not only because oils replaced eggs as a binding agent, but techniques perfected by Jan van Eyck and Leonardo da Vinci for the use of these oil-based paints enabled the creation of unprecedented details, smooth transitions, subtle layering of pigments, optical effects, hence realism. Certain materials allowed artists to invent and use new techniques that have led to entirely new, extended, artistic palette (pun intended).

Leonardo's use of the sfumato technique (just think of the Mona Lisa) was enabled by this type of paint that could be applied in thin layers to produce unprecedented subtle transitions. Jan Van Eyck's somewhat creepy Arnolfini Portrait is another fabulous example of his perfected oil painting technique - so astonishing, that later on (the anyway only partially trustworthy) Vasari even attributed, wrongly, the invention of oil painting to him - and this was parroted by many for way too long... even by Google art history pages at present time...

In addition, the expansion of trade routes gave painters access to materials that had been either entirely new or just horrendously expensive until then. A red dye extracted from an exotic insect gave painters a vibrant crimson never seen before. Chemists, from the 18th century onward, created new pigments or discovered synthetic, hence affordable, versions of extremely pricey ones - let's just think of ultramarine, which in the Renaissance era could literally bankrupt a painter. 

With the invention of myriad synthetic pigments, industrial paints, and the new painting techniques that emerged with the use of these, artists created never before imagined nor seen tones and textures. To mention just one milestone: acrylic paints suddenly gave painters water-based, quick-drying, and cheap paints that had vibrant colours. Painters could achieve watercolour effects whilst exploiting how the canvas absorbed the water-based pigments - and so on and on.

Rothko is just one example of artists who used all kinds of pigments, materials, and techniques, from watercolour to acrylic dyes to oil to ink. After all, instead of ideologising and/or eulogising one type of material or technique, some embraced whatever was available - because those pigments and techniques were tools of expression. 

They did not define themselves by the tools they used, somethint that would have totally turn upside down the relationship between the artist and the instrument(s)... Does the latter sound familiar from somewhere?...

So let's imagine a painter in the 21st century stating that using primed panels and egg tempera, the type of paint that used egg yolk as binding agent (think of the Renaissance greats), is "better" than all of the countless dyes and techniques, hence ranges of new colours, optical effects, transitions etc. that got added to the world of painting from the 15th century onward.

Such painters can only avoid sounding ludicrous or nonsensical if they frame their claim within the context of a personal methodology, preference, and/or artistic aim that needs those particular pigments and techniques whilst disregarding myriad others that deliver their own unique artistic effects.

Some do justify their self-limiting choice within such well-defined context, with the choice and the results being highly respected - think of James Lynch's landscapes where he returns to the toolbox of Medieval masters because he is after specific effects. 

The point is not that Lynch adopts old pigments and techniques. The hopefully very obvious point is that some artists adopt a certain well-defined subset (!) of currently available means of artistic expression in the service of particular and specific end goals.

OK, so... back to synths then - and that elephant in the analogue vs. digital synth debates. 

If not terribly obvious by now, the central aspect that renders such these debates vacuous is what analogue sound synthesis occupies in the galaxy of sound synthesis methods. 

Most analogue synthesizers are based on so-called subtractive synthesis, Other analogue synthesis methods can add to pre-existing frequency-domain content - for example, ring modulation adds frequency components that make highly characteristic sounds. Frequency modulation, when done via analogue means, can also result in complex spectra - but this is lightyears behind complex multi-operator setups for numerous practical reasons.

For example, frequency modulation-based analogue synthesis cannot create digital multi-operator FM synthesis in the vein of John Chowning's revolutionary method, because the precise control of myriad parameters (and an inherent mathematical stability essential for the reproducibility of a certain sound) cannot be achieved via analogue oscillators and their analogue controls. Tiny instability or change in parameters can produce vastly different sounds, therefore these parameters need precise and stable means of control, not to mention the programmable evolution in real time of myriad parameters. 

Without going down the sound synthesis rabbit hole, the obvious fact is that analogue synths and all their vast, world-changing, and still highly fascinating sonic capabilities occupy a mere subset of sound synthesis methods. 

The list can go on and one. As just one extra example, any objective person with any command of sound synthesis, related physics, and signal processing knows that no analogue synthesis method can produce the timbres created by Wolfgang Palm's particular type of wavetable synthesis, nor those of granular synthesis... 

But again, the key point is not the capabilities, strengths, and limitations of certain synthesis methods and the instruments that employ them. 

The "A is better than B" debate, when it comes to analogue "vs." digital synthesizers, only holds any water whatsoever when it is framed, exactly as in the case of painting, by personal particulars. 

The problem with a nebulous "better" is the irrational generalisation of a narrow and  personal frame of context, i.e. the elevation of one specific subset of sonic capabilities above the entire range of capabilities. 

If someone is only and only after what subtractive analogue synthesis can produce in terms of sonic palette then one can eulogize and even ideologize it - as long as the confines of that sonic world are honestly acknowledged. 

If one is only using subtractive synthesis in its pure analogue form for musical genres, styles, 'moods' and sonic colours that are characterised or even defined by that synthesis method, then fine. Be rational about it and see that a subset of colours are being used from a vast palette. Even if that subset is fiercely said to be inimitable and unique (this is a whole other debate on analogue modeling accuracy), it is still a subset. 

The arguments centred on a resounding "synthesis method X is better" are as fallacious as an "egg tempera yellow is better than all other vast ranges of pigments and painting techniques" statement would be in the sphere of visual arts.

Irrational, even deplorably desperate attempts to square the circle did and do exist. Some had set out to demonstrate that everything that came after analogue (subtractive) synthesis can be created via the latter. It is deplorable not only due to the immense waste of creative and engineering efforts that could have been used for using the right tools for the right job (and focusing on the artistic goals, if any) - but also because it shows the cognitive dissonance at work. Attempts to make rudimentary and impractical (this, unusable) analogue 'replicas' of some digital synthesis methods reveal the psychology of obstinate denial of fundamental physics, acoustics, and sensory perception laws.

For example, the spectral movements caused by Palm's revolutionary wavetable synthesis (not to be confused with the generic uses of the term 'wavetable') cannot be achieved via analogue means - due to its core, defining, principle. Internet examples of euphoric analogue fetishists demonstrating the morphing from one simple waveform into another one via immense effort and purely analogue means are as commendable as they are tragicomic. 

Those attempts demonstrate not only the fundamental limitation that is hit immediately by them - but also the lack of understanding of what a PPG Wave synthesizer and all its famed successors did to create their unique sound world.

Similarly, attempts to demonstrate multiple analogue oscillators frequency modulating each other demonstrate the inherent absurdity of the task: beyond a two-oscillator setup, the tiny differences in the oscillator circuits (from instance to instance), instabilities in their parameters, and the inability of controlling precisely the notoriously vast number of often rapidly evolving parameters make the sounds impossible to control and reproduce.

If one takes physical modeling synthesis, for example the Karplus Strong algorithm of a string model, and dials in precisely controlled (even physically impossible!) parameters that cannot occur in the real world... or excites the string with complex audio waveforms instead of e.g. plucking... it is simply pointless to even discuss the analogue emulation of this. 

One could go on and on. 

In both worlds, painting and sound synthesis-employing music, analogue sound synthesis methods are a subset of methods that have produce their eminently different sonic worlds - a simple fact, even if in our post-factual society facts have been reduced to mere subjective opinions. 

Please, whoever resorts to the sweepingly general "better" rooted in a false dichotomy: add an acceptable reasoning that is rooted in your personal artistic aim - and acknowledge the boundaries of the island on which you chose to move to. 

That island has unique beauty and buried treasures to uncover over time - but there are vast, very different continents out there. Ignoring them is a personal and artistic choice, so is traveling around the world and embracing all the distinct marvels of all other islands and continents. Some choose and even need the latter for their sonic ventures, like all artists throughout history who embraced all creative means and put them in the service of their art - instead of defining themselves via a tiny subset of them.

The emperor's clothes... and Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxymore

 

The twenty-second studio album from one of the grand masters of visionary electronic music has been released as an homage to Pierre Henry, and Jarre's official website presents it as "conceptually his most ambitious and groundbreaking to date".

If one approaches it with quite a few decades of Jarre fandom and almost equal number of decades of audio engineering experience under one's belt, the impulse to state a few non-subjective facts about this album becomes uncontrollable. 

Thus, it is easiest to describe what this album is not...  and these facts definitely contradict the  bandwagoning and artificial, thoughtless applauding in quite a few music publications.

One has to start with the claim that this is Jarre's most ambitious and groundbreaking studio album... 

The listener may have been fascinated by the paradox of the recent Equinoxe Infinity album, which was released with great hype about its futuristic visions - but the album contained highly self-conscious nostalgia and re-iterations of the past (down to the use of specific 1970s sounds from the original Equinoxe), combined with quasi-desperate EDM trendiness and shockingly antiquated, even banale, sound sample manipulations from the mid-1980s. 

If that listener wishes to revisit those mixed feelings, then Oxymore is another perfect album for that. 

Pierre Henry was undoubtedly a trailblazer with huge influence on Jarre, too. In 2022, chopping of samples of his speech (and other sounds) is not only far from groundbreaking or ambitious creativity, it is not even something of the present. Nor is time stretching, or rapid modulation of audio synthesis parameters. What we hear throughout the album, in terms of the sounds used as rhythmic or pitch-pattern elements, could be and has been done, admittedly more tediously, in the mid-to-late 1980s already. 

Ambitious and groundbreaking creativity is not tens of minutes of rapid changes to sound localisation in stereo or surround sound space, applied to almost all sequenced patterns and lead motifs. Well, lead sounds, as one has to challenge misty-eyed reviewers (who are using words they prove not to understand at all) to name a single musical motif they remember after the album listening ends. There are none, albeit this one is, naturally, a subjective take. 

So let's paddle back to the waters of objective analysis via a trajectory that is much less jagged and histrionic than the sound processing on the entire album...

The sorely missed Klaus Schulze or any grand master of the Berlin School of EM have demonstrated decades ago how on-the-surface monotonous sounding sequenced sounds can actually contain a Universe of myriad changes, subtleties, fluid and spirited movements that can enchant the brain. 

What we have on Oxymore is a robotic, exactly repeating sequencing in many places, where musically or even sonically there is zero change - whilst other layers of sounds are trying to mask this with the aforementioned aggressive, constantly jumping-around, aimless modulations of filters, envelopes, distortion effects, and spatial localisation. 

Do we recall Moon Machine, from the album Images or the single? If one takes away all the structural development, and puts its sequencing, panning, and rhythm programming through a MIDI randomizer plugin that changes control parameters rapidly... we would get something very close to the majority of the "tracks" on Oxymore. But... Moon Machine was created then released in the mid-1980s...

Some called the new album Zoolook 2. Once again, one (in a by-now thoroughly irritated manner) has to conclude that some, simply and factually, have no idea why Zoolook was astonishingly imaginative, innovative, and why it holds up even in 2022 as a seriously "wow" electronic album. Oxymore would only be a Zoolok 2 if it had used current synthesis and re-synthesis methods in a way that it pushes them far beyond what everybody else is doing at the moment with them. 

Using 1980s garbling of audio samples, 1990s grain synthesis, time stretching based on the same granular technology that has been around us for decades etc. is not even reaching the level of what other (experimental or mainstream) electronic artists have been doing for years, if not decades. 

The one area of innovation where Oxymore can fairly claim novelty status is, ironically, not in electronic music - it is in visual and immersive virtual reality realm.

In mixing and mastering, sure, there are state-of-the art audio techniques employed - the Dolby Atmos mix makes it something worth listening to, from a sonic experience and technical viewpoint... at most. 

The supreme irony of this album is that if this was to be any kind of true homage to Pierre Henry, it could have been a cerebral sonic collage or any form of 'experimental' electronic music - instead of something abundant in desperately trendy drum machine beats and many EDM clichés.

The subject area where it is quite near-impossible to write anything objective is certainly the musical one. Does Oxymore contain anything more than jarring, random, overdone, and sometimes, for prolonged sections, robotically monotonous sonic puree from a high-powered blender?

Well, let's attempt a not purely subjective answer based on a look at Jarre's first few albums released almost four and a half decades ago... and Oxymore.

The astounding imagination that resulted in the groundbreaking Oxygene and Equinoxe albums was both technical and musical. Fascinating creativity fought with rudimentary technology, pushing it to its limits, in order to create something fluid, otherworldly, yet so human that it even contained memorable hummable tunes... and evergreen EM "hits". 

It is deeply ironic, that all the hype around Oxymore simply cannot hide the glaringly obvious fact that, apart from the mentioned mixing/mastering technology and the multimedia materials accompanying the album's sonic content, Oxymore does not bring anything new that makes erudite or non-erudite listeners sit up on hearing unprecedented flights of imagination.

One could put up even with pure technological innovation in the "tracks" when it comes to sound synthesis, but all one hears is regurgitated decades-old technology hammered-on with the higher speed modulation capabilities of modern software. 

Jarre stated that he feels "sorry for those afraid of the future". Quite rightly so. However, his depiction of future is robotically re-using decades-old EM tropes pushed to the extreme, while the visuals are quasi-monochromatic, as sterile and industrial-looking as the CGI in Tron was in the early 1980s... or a modern rendering of the gloomy industrial cityscapes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis from the mid-1920s... If this is the future, then, unfortunately, we should be worried about a return to the visions of 1950s dystopian science fiction...

Even if one let the hype-vs-reality contradictions of the "futuristic" Equinoxe Infinity pass despite its dense 1970s (and clichéd 1990s) references, it is impossible to do so in the case of Oxymore. The emperor, this time, really isn't wearing any clothes. 

The sage of sonic Universes: R.I.P. Vangelis (1943-2022)

 

A kid, aged eight and a half, is mesmerised by an episode of something called Cosmos, made by a superb scientist (Carl Sagan) he never heard of, airing on the national TV channel of a Communist country in the grips of a dictator, at the end of the 1970s... 

To see this on the propaganda-saturated, unwatchable TV channel, which was only airing anything for a few hours per day, was a stunning experience in itself. 

But the little kid got hooked, quasi-obsessed, with the main theme of the series. The stars and galaxies were flowing in the vast Cosmos, accompanied by a piano motif, then the music built into an orchestral and electronic ocean, finishing off with celestial choirs...

It was nothing the kid heard before and it was, at the same time, Earthly, passionate, sublime, and otherworldly. Somebody called Vangelis was listed as composer. 

In 2022, an almost fifty-one year old former kid, with vast music collection ranging from 12th century Early Music to space ambient electronica, is in disbelief... as the man who triggered his interest in music that transcends any categorisation, any temporal and spatial limit, is gone. 

Vangelis Papathanassiou, the Greek composer, multi-instrumentalist, pioneer of synthesizer music of a unique kind, has passed away aged 79 in France, on the 17 May 2022. 

The obituaries inundating the international press at the moment, hours after the announcement, are making ostinato-like repeated references to his Oscar winning film score for Chariots of Fire, to his era-defining and endlessly imitated, sub-genre creating soundtrack to the legendary Blade Runner, to his trailblazing years in the prog rock band Aphrodite's Child, to his collaborations with myriad musicians, to his many other soundtrack works.

But there are aspects of his life and music that even in 2022 are unique or, at best, very seldom found in contemporary music. 

Vangelis never cared about what instruments made the unimaginable range of sounds he used. He stated many times that he "happened" to use synthesizers as he just found it easier to create the previously unheard sounds he imagined. He thoroughly rejected the terms electronic music or electronic musician - these labels, as his discography proves, were meaningless. 

He proved that not the tools, but their uses matter - synthesizers never sounded so warm, passionate, epic as in his creations at a time where countless others were diving into electronic styles that put the technology at the centre. Some to this day rage endless debates online about nonsensical sub-divisions of synthesizer categories and define themselves by the tools they use. Vangelis was and remained the antithesis of all that.

Vangelis never cared about genres - and could instinctively inhabit, recreate, convey the spirit of countless historic periods and ethnic tradisions. Time and space seized to exist, countless ancient traditions, styles, genres and sub-genres met seamlessly in his music... As Ridley Scott once said, Vangelis could effortlessly sound Medieval and contemporary at the same time. 

And here comes the clencher. 

The man who composed everything from progressive rock to jazz and jazz rock, from African tribal music to Celtic ballads, from Far Eastern lullabies to space ambient, from Medieval choral and instrumental music to fiery and Earth-shattering cosmic electronic epics... never formally learnt music, never read or wrote music. 

His Direct system invented in the later 80s allowed him even more what he was doing before: largely improvised creations emanated from his sonic wonderland... with zero regard to the contorted artificial categorisations the music press tried to squeeze his compositions into. 

His discography is impossible, it cannot exist - yet it does. Not long ago this blog posted a quick "inventory" of the utterly mindblowing range of styles, genres, and sub-genres he composed in.

It could not have been composed by one man, it is just impossible that a single person could span millennia and tens of thousands of miles of musical traditions and styles. Yet it was composed by a formally never musically trained man. 

What it meant to listen to his musical Universe during a Communist dictatorship, as a sonic escapism filled with wonder, is impossible to describe for the former little kid who got blown away by the main theme from Cosmos. 

What it meant in subsequent decades to discover the truly limitless sonic Universe Vangelis could create... is also impossible to describe.

May He rest in peace, reunited with the music of the Universe, which, as he often humbly said, was merely channeled by him. He maintained that he never composed anything... he just managed to hear what the Universe was creating.

Thank you, Grand Master of wondrous sounds. 

Men, maths, and machines: Stochastic by Carbon Based Lifeforms

 

Stochastic music, as an actual term and method, really has its origins in Yannis Xenakis's seminal work from the 1960s, entitled Formalized Music (Musiques Formelles). 

Essentially, random processes not only produce musical events in stochastic compositions, but they can be directed and/or constrained such that they can even create musical pieces of a certain style or genre. Creating a systematic mathematical treatise on this topic was an utterly groundbreaking move. 

Of course, in 2021, we have the luxury of looking back at decades of genuine computer music - i.e. musical works that were created not just on, but by computers. With the advent of personal computers, one could create such works at home, tinkering with stochastic processes or elaborate mathematical algorithms (for example, in the case of fractal music).

Computer compositions reliant on random elements were no longer confined to the laboratories with huge and terrifying looking computer monsters. Once upon a time, the stunningly human and mesmerising Illiac Suite could only be created on such a monstrosity, the ILLIAC computer at the University of Illinois.

Many have ventured into the realm of computer music, after all, even the ambient music luminary Brian Eno has built bridges between ambient and generative music.

We are almost at the end of 2021 now, and the ambient/psybient duo Carbon Based Lifeforms surprised fans by the release of an album called Stochastic. 

The album returns to the sonic world of their earlier ambiental albums like VLA and Twentythree.

The way in which this album was created is eminently different, though. Well, you may have guessed it, stochastic processes were applied in order to generate the sound sequences and textures. 

As the authors describe it, the tracks were born from exploiting the random features of some of their synths, and they were left alone to do their things... creating evolving textures, layers, and motifs. 

The track titles are firmly rooted in the world of maths and algorithms, apart from some poetic ones like Hello From The Children Of Planet Earth. Titles like Eigenvector, Finite State Space, Sphere Eversion are straight out of the world of vector algebra, control theory, and topology. 

One key aspect to highlight here is that the album does not contain what some may fear: these are not academic unlistenable experimentation, alien and alienating random sounds, or products of some purely theoretical adventure in areas of mathematics that nobody may understand. 

The album does sound remarkably identifiable as a CBL album. It has dreamy textures, floating layers of sonic bliss, and memorable evolving motifs. 

What is often forgotten when some discuss computer-generated music is that ultimately, it is still the human producing the end result. 

That human input may be merely a selection process of picking out pieces or entire tracks from the randomly generated output. It may be human involvement in the constraints imposed on the pseudo-random processes. It may be human control of numerous parameters, algorithms, stochastic processes. It may be human choices in the processing of the resulting sounds, e.g. via choices of effects.

Where the machine ends and where the human begins in computer-generated music is often a futile debate. 

We, as listeners are hearing the end result of a 'collaboration' between man and machine, where the machine was given more freedom than in normally composed and performed electronic music. 

When listening to Stochastic, at least this reviewer would recommend something perhaps scandalous to the listener: let's forget analysing where that delimitation line between the human crew of CBL and the synths may be. Let's not treat it as a highly technological record...

It is ethereal, pleasant, non-intrusive music but by no means for passive listening. There are endless details and myriad changes of subtle or tidal nature, there are tiny evolutions of sounds and there are vast swells of sounds. There are passages that are genuinely uplifting, expansive, and infused with what seems to be human emotions.

It comes across as a wholly enjoyable, varied, and quite human album. 

As Bill Laswell once wrote, Computers and electronic music are not the opposite of the warm human music. It's exactly the same...

Returning from turbulent seas: Paul Haslinger's Exit Ghost II

 

Being an influential member, even if temporarily, of a legendary band with individual voice in the global music landscape can affect later on the way in which the band's fans react to one's solo albums... especially when those significantly depart from what is "expected" by those fans. 

If a band is as long-lived and influential as Tangerine Dream is, then its ex-members' solo efforts inevitably get compared by fans, and not just, to the style and sonic universe of the TD albums from various eras. 

When Christopher Franke released his highly visual, descriptive (thus, in classical terms, program) music on his first solo album (Pacific Coast Highway), there were not only ovations... but also dismay from some. It was not "like TD". It was "disappointingly" not TD. 

Paul Haslinger, another notable name in Tangerine Dream history, has quite a few soundtrack, solo, and collaborative albums under his belt. Even so, his fragile, almost translucent, ethereal album Exit Ghost stunned some - not in a positive way. It was a radical departure not only from TD, but also from his own previous creations... 

Probably similar things happen with the new album, Exit Ghost II... One can always judge a composer by the musical range he/she is capable of (even if one is not subjectively enjoying some segments of that range), or one can just judge it by comparisons with what is "expected". In latter case, it seems useful to provide a very early hint to those listeners - and let them know that this album, too is a radical departure from "expected" TD-like music. 

Its predecessor was born under exceptional circumstances - and this sequel comes just when the world is trying to return from the lengthy shock that was Covid's arrival. 

To quote, the album was "born out of an incessant need to escape the trauma that has gripped the world for the last year coupled with an urge to complement the introspective and moody atmospherics of the last record, ‘Exit Ghost II’ is the counter-element that closes the circle".

The very first things to remark is that it does have a wider sonic range, with even orchestral textures - it does feel more luminous and emotionally charged. However, it still has that sublime quality that we heard on the first album, and entire passages of it can only be compared to the gentle, remarkably introspective soundscapes we hear on Ryuichi Sakamoto's Async or many Olafur Arnalds albums. 

Cambium, the opening track does place us in the minimalist, charming, piano- and electronic percussion-based Universe we may hear on Arnalds albums. Other piano-centric tracks like Septuagint are playful, adventurous, this particular one playing with 7/8 time signature that is refreshing to hear after so many metric tonnes of firmly 4/4-based electronic music...

Emerald is an example of the ethereal beauty Haslinger can conjure from some floating electronic textures and a few perfect gems of piano motifs. Translucent, exactly as the title suggests, is another example, where choral sounds are at the same time Earth-bound and otherworldly. 

Waltz II and Inversion III return us to a piano-based sonic world, with the former bringing lovely melancholy, while the latter moving out into more experimental-sounding chromaticism.

Mishkin has again an ethereal feel that can be perhaps described as something that Thomas Newman fans would love: fragile, translucent textures punctuated by gentle piano chords. So is Schubert IX Coda, which combines infinitely delicate electronics with subtle piano notes and chords.

The closing track, A Young Fellow is not only standing out with its rich orchestral feel, but it is also charming with its use of voice samples - and overall an uplifting, optimistic ending to the album.

As the notes of the album state, Paul Haslinger’s ‘Exit Ghost II’ is the composer’s quest for arrival after a year lost at sea. 

After a bizarre and in many ways dark, anxiety-permeated year, this follow-up album, ending with aforementioned uplifting track filled with optimism, is really a successful antidote to 2020's dark clouds...

Still holding the sky - Intruder by Gary Numan

 

Gary Numan's compositions have often been running ahead of the times, either in terms of the music, instrumentation, lyrics... or all of the above. After the dystopian visions of Savage, the new concept album Intruder is more about the here-and-now than some imagined future - however, the sound design, music, and production aspects of the album have that otherworldly and unmistakable Numan feel that one expects. 

It is again an introspectice record, in many ways connects us with the world of one of his recent and highly personal albums, Splinter.

Each track seems to be perfectly integrated into the whole that Intruder constitutes as an album, nothing feels out of place - and remarkably, after more than four decades of creative output, at least this reviewer could not find a single track that noticeably differs from the overall feel of the album, in terms of its quality and level of engagement triggered in the listener. 

We have many tracks of an eminently anthemic quality, some with genuine head bobbing potential... Now and Forever is a perfect example, so is I Am Screaming - we may find ourselves singing along at the top of our otherwise modest voices. Numan's melodic inventiveness is still at a sustained peak - many of the melodic phrases of the album have earworm potential, and many melodies, especially in the expansive choruses, have a not often heard beauty. 

Tracks like The Gift or The End of Dragons have those Eastern touches we last heard on Savage, whilst Black Sun takes us into the world of intimate, gentle Numan compositions. If Intruder, the title track, is suitably dark and reaching for harsher metallic rock sonorities, compositions like the aforementioned I Am Screaming show that quintessential Numan characteristic: a track can go from subtle, almost whispering vocal phrases to a soaring, uplifting, and ceiling-lifting chorus in under one second. The emotional effect, the lift, such tracks give the listener are hard to put in words, but Numan fans will be very familiar with the effect. 

This album, too is a collaboration with Ade Fenton, thus in terms of production values, technical wizardry and the overall Numan-esque soundscapes, Intruder excels. It unleashes on us an instantly recognisable soundworld, across the entire range - and the album certainly has a vast range, going from delicate ballad-like passages to Earth-shattering passages. The Chosen or Is This World Not Enough are good examples of how the vast forces at work are managed, tamed, or unleashed with full force.

The electronic percussion, too is highly characteristic, decayed metal parts of dismantled androids and remains of alien spaceships are scraped, banged together, hit with other things... 

As some may hear on some M83 albums, Intruder achieves the rare mixing and mastering fete of having even the soft, subtle, even quasi-whispered vocals come across with perfecly intelligible words whilst immersed in thundering electronic textures.

The term "synth-pop" or "electro-pop", which was used for decades to label Gary Numan's music, is still in use today... But if his recent albums were not sufficient proof of the fact that the use of this label nowadays is just a lazy shorthand, then Intruder once again demonstrates this.

To paraphrase one of the lines from The End of Dragons, Gary Numan still holds the sky as a bona fide electronic music hero, with yet another fully-fledged concept album that dares to move lightyears outside current stereotypical electronica.

Living, breathing, pulsating Amazônia - an immersive new work from Jean-Michel Jarre

Amazônia is an immersive exhibition focusing on the Brazilian Amazon, based on more than 200 photographs and other media by legendary photographer and filmmaker Sebastião Salgado. He had spent six years in the region, capturing the natural elements and the local cultures.

Electronic music legend Jean-Michel Jarre has composed and recorded a musical score for the exhibition. 

The first and rather central aspect is that this, after many years, marks a return to an ambiental, even musique concrète, soundworld that Jarre fans may know from only a few seminal works.

Apart from some of Jarre's early, pre-Oxygène, works, we have only heard this compositional approach in his sampling-based classic album Zoolook and in the mesmerising, final track of Waiting For Cousteau.

Amazônia will certainly "disappoint" Jarre fans who expect musical output that is either in the vein of unashamedly nostalgic re-visiting of classic albums like Equinoxe or in the quite heavily EDM-leaning mainstream electronic works we could hear in recent years. 

It is not an album with driving sequences and rhythm patterns, certainly not one with sonic fireworks. There is something of the intimacy of the album Sessions 2000 in this, it feels and sounds like a highly personal project with great attention to detail. 

An interesting aspect is that the album's many natural sounds are not actually field-recorded sounds, instead, they were created and/or assembled in Jarre's studio. 

It is impossible to do a track-by-track 'usual' review of the album, as it is an overall sonic experience, with numbered tracks that seamlessly flow into each other. If we think of Tangerine Dream's Zeit or Atem, Vangelis's delicate and intricately minimalistic Soil Festivities, well, Amazônia firmly positions itself in that type of sonic Universe.

Perhaps the most charming aspect of the work is how the countless tiny details combine and how they change. We have occasional appearances of melodic motifs, very subtle sequences, pulsations, but the centre stage is occupied by the sonic elements that conjur the world of the Amazon rainforest. 

It is a symphony of a very special and subdued kind, where the listener is trusted to pay attention to numerous tiny changes in the sounds and the musical elements. There are moments of 'tangible' electronic music, between ambiental soundscapes that seem to purely come into being  and exist without any human intervention.

Admittedly, this blogger admires that particular quality in some seminal works by other EM greats like the aforementioned ones and certainly in works by Klaus Schulze - thus,  in the case of Amazônia we are invited to an, overused word perhaps nowadays, immersive experience.

Amazônia simply seems to exist, filling the available space, floating in the air, with myriad infinitesimal sonic elements that arrange themselves into a veritable constellation of natural sounds. 

It is music, it is a sound, for introspective times - whilst it can be as abstract as some works by Brian Eno, the evocation of the natural world works splendidly, and gives the album a highly organic feel. 

This is not musique concrète that escaped from the labs of some electronic pioneers, not a sterile collage of natural and electronic sounds... It seems to breathe and have currents, undercurrents, pulsations of some greater organism - it has life.

As a landmark in the Jarre discography, Amazônia is a rare and unexpected change of direction after years of adventures in increasingly mainstream electronic music sub-genres. It is a surprise, and if the listener enjoyed Waiting For Cousteau or the sonic introspections of Ethnicolor from Zoolook, that listener will find Amazônia a mesmerising sonic journey. 

Juno To Jupiter: a vast musical journey by Vangelis

 

The concept album, inspired by NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, and recorded in collaboration with the superlative soprano Angela Gheorghiu, has had a turbulent adventure even before its official release.

Vangelis fans could acknowledge with a contented smile that the entire album is absolutely unmistakably the work of the Greek master, with entirely new tracks.

Not only that each track has, as it will become apparent in the review below, signature sounds and technical aspects we encountered on some of the most fondly remembered Vangelis releases of previous decades, but... each track perfectly expresses its respective title, and they perfectly blend together into a truly epic musical adventure. 

It is considered "old-fashioned" nowadays in electronic music, which is understood by many to be just EDM, to have a proper and programmatic approach to composition. Well, Vangelis, once again, approaches the album's concepts with meticulously developed and executed compositional intent. 

Each track is a musical description and an enthralling artistic interpretation of that track's theme - and it all fits into a phenomenal and truly epic journey through time and space. It takes us from references to ancient mythology to the vast spectacles staged by the giant of our Solar System.

As this is a Vangelis album, this is not a cold, cerebral space ambient work. 

Even if it had been, and even if it had resorted to classic space-rock means, one could still point out that, well, most of those musical means were actually invented and made instantly recognisable by Vangelis...

However, this is a passionate, epic, genuinely enchanting record, with seemingly superhuman imagination and compositional skills taking us from the most serene and ethereal harmonies to the most thundering unleashings of cosmic forces one can possibly imagine. 

Until its September release, hopefully the below track-by-track review can be a useful taster for what awaits the avid fans and those who may not have heard previously Vangelis's works.

1. Atlas's Push
The references to ancient mythology and space exploration run alongside each other throughout the entire album. The opening track refers to the Atlas V rocket that lifted the Juno space probe beyond our atmosphere, named after the Titan who had to hold, for all eternity, the celestial heavens.

The menacing electronic pulsations underpin mission control commentary... and when latter gives way to an evocation of outer space, we are suddenly propelled into the swells of characteristic sounds we may have heard last time on Antarctica and the Alexander soundtracks.

This is not a depiction of Juno leaving our atmosphere via some abstract and clichéd space ambient sound painting - this is the emotion, the exaltation that the humans who created and launched this probe must have felt.

Once again, Vangelis is the Great Romantic of human endeavour and exploration - depicting the human emotion rather than the abstract cerebral aspects of the central theme.

2. Inside Our Perspectives
This is a youthful, jazzy track of a laid-back, but distinctly head-bobbing, character. Vintage synth leads fly above pulsating waves of electronic percussion and bass arpeggios, with exquisite care taken in sound design, too.

The track induces in the listener a sense of dynamism, expectation, and excitement that must have surrounded the entire mission.

3. Out In Space

Again, we could have been treated to some space ambient collage of sounds, but Vangelis choses to depict in sounds a sense of awe. We have here the unmistakable brass and string sections that enchanted us on  the Alexander soundtrack and during The Thread ballet score.

Great swells of mighty chords are punctuated by crystalline piano arpeggios, this is again about our human emotions as we follow the mission from our tiny blue dot, as Carl Sagan described our cosmic home. 

The Earthly majestic sounds are underscored by a quite contrasting and eminently electronic sound pattern that, as a simple but effective artistic solution, manages to describe the alien strangeness of outer space.

4. Juno's Quiet Determination

It would not be a Vangelis record if it had not seized on the ancient mythological possibilities offered by the central theme.

Bouncy, staccato patterns of electronic pulsations are providing a shifting structure above which lush chords, ethereal vocal sounds, crystalline harp and glockenspiel notes start to hover.

And then there is an ethnic woodwind motif, which manages to sound ancient and futuristic, giving a mysterious and timeless feel to the music. As Ridley Scott said about the soundtrack to 1492 Conquest Of Paradise, Vangelis is uniquely able to sound ancient and contemporary at the same time...

5. Jupiter's Intuition

Orchestral swells and ominous timpani evoke mental imagery of Jupiter, the almighty deity and the giant of our Solar System. 

The thundering crescendo that elevates us to emotional heights is suddenly restrained, with a brief ethereal repose… before tidal waves of sounds return. 

Walls of our listening room swiftly vanish, we are in the realm of vast stretches of space and time.

6. Juno's Power

We are again elevated, propelled up and up on the emotional scale, with swells of grand string and brass chords supported by thundering staccato patterns from the electronic orchestra... 

If we recall Heaven & Hell or parts of the colossal Mythodea, well, we can again realise that only Vangelis can depict the Cosmic in this way with his unmistakable tuned timpani punctuating those lush textures.

Huge forces are unleashed here, but they never cross into the realm of uncomfortable. There is a majestic, but seductively simple, melody that appears above the vast sonic landscape, making this another hugely uplifting track.

7. Space’s Mystery Road

A playful, and once again a surprisingly jazzy track, with a laid-back electronic percussion pattern that provides solid structure for the playful piano improvisations, latter being sometimes punctuated by Vangelis’s instantly recognisable  timpani. 

One has to make a reference to Albedo 0.39, as Vangelis treats us to cosmic jazz-rock motifs during our cosmic journey, as he had done several decades ago on that classic space-rock album.

8. In The Magic Of Cosmos

Would we be hearing some predictable new age-ish electronic texture to evoke what the title of this track expresses? Perhaps yes, if this were not a Vangelis album...

Instead, we have an achingly beautiful, uplifting and expansive, but astonishingly economical motif of just three notes… brought to life by an epic orchestral arrangement. Just three notes build the poignant melodic motif that makes us feel as if we are expanding beyond our physical body’s confines.

Again, this is the Cosmos translating all its mysteries into a few sounds that we, infinitesimal beings, can just about grasp with our limited senses.

9. Juno's Tender Call

The track marks the first appearance of the sublime Angela Gheorghiu on this album. Her celestial vocals, which are intertwined with the vast orchestral tides, feel effortlessly improvised. 

One cannot imagine a more splendid evocation of Juno, the ancient goddess, than this blend of almost otherworldly vocals and exquisite synthesizer textures.

10. Juno's Echoes

We move from the ancient to more abstract and mysterious realms, this being an eminently electronic meditation. Melodic fragments appear and reverberate in those signature Vangelis sonic spaces, amongst gentle bell-like sounds. 

This is another peaceful track where the melodic motifs feel as if they were playfully improvised, but they are eminently restrained and highly effective in their beautiful simplicity.

11. Juno’s Ethereal Breeze

Angelic vocal textures conjure up the imagery suggested by the track’s title. Ethereal might become an over-used word in describing passages of this album, but this track's title is perfectly fitting.

Swirls and crystalline twinklings of sounds embellish the choral notes, preparing us for another very visual track that follows in our cosmic journey.

12. Jupiter’s Veil Of Clouds

Another immersive track, perfectly prepared by the previous composition - we glide into the mysterious world of Jupiter's clouds, we shift from mythological references to the scientific mission of exploring a fascinating alien world.

Vangelis is stunningly able to depict musically both the fragile translucent cloud formations and unimaginable atmospheric forces unleashed by the planet. The musical solution is elegant and effective, once again.

Synthesizer arpeggios, with very short, almost spiky sounds, are contrasted by floating, lingering notes on a piano - the Earthly meets the otherworldly. The pulsations get stronger, the timpani sounds appear with ominous rumbling and thundering… There are vast Cosmic forces at work here, not just ethereal and mysterious beauty.

13. Hera / Juno Queen of the Gods

After we have been shaken and stirred by Jupiter's unimaginably vast and powerful atmospheric currents, after we managed to marvel at its strange beauty thanks to Vangelis’s’ sonic wizardry, we land in an ocean of splendid tranquility.

The gentle notes from woodwind and harp-like synthesizer sounds melt, this really is the right word, they melt into gentle string textures - which, in turn, give way to soaring vocals by Angela Gheorghiu. 

Hera, and her Roman mythology equivalent Juno, are evoked here with reverence.

14. Zeus Almighty

The longest track on the album is dedicated to, whom else, the almighty Zeus of course, Jupiter’s equivalent in the mythology of Vangelis’s homeland. It is as if we are taking a journey in the mind of the Greek supreme deity, before we move back into Roman mythology with the following track. 

This is also a journey into the tumultous unleashing of forces that the planet shows us in unprecedented footage acquired by the Juno probe.

For those who have seen the documentary Vangelis And The Journey To Ithaka, perhaps one could describe the track as something like that literally breathtaking improvisation we can see in the film. The track feels improvised, with a firm structure but many gear changes, and an almost superhuman ease in going from translucent, fragile, ethereal sounds to thundering orchestral unleashings of immense forces.

For the technically minded, one side-note would be that we can hear those phenomenal and highly characteristic string patches we have marvelled at during the period marked by the albums Mask, Soil Festivities, and Antarctica.

One can almost see Vangelis unleashing these forces with impossibly effortless gestures on the stacks of keyboards. We hear Zeus's capricious temper, his human escapades, his dark and luminous moods... A very human deity, with an inner world as turbulent as the mighty planet's.

15. Jupiter Rex

The track is a natural continuation of the previous one, with thundering timpani and vast, ominous choirs… 

It feels almost as if we have moved seamlessly from  the ancient Greek to the Roman evocations of the supreme deity.

At the same time, both tracks conjure images of the colossal forces the largest planet in our Solar System is capable of demonstrating on Juno's unprecedented images.

16. Juno’s Accomplishments

Angela Gheorghiu’s ethereal vocals provide us with a respite after the mighty sonic tides we heard in the previous two tracks. 

Harp arpeggios and gentle piano notes are effortlessly gliding over waves and swells of characteristic string chords, whilst the vocal gives this track, too an almost mystical feel.

17. Apo 22

From timeless chapters of ancient mythology, from boundless expanses of the Cosmos, we suddenly return to Earth for a moment. 

We hear NASA mission control again, marking the joyous moment of the Juno probe successfully executing the crucial Apo-22 manoeuvre, which avoided the long flight through Jupiter's shadow that would have depleted the solar powered probe's batteries. 

The voice recording is infused with shimmering synthesizer sounds, giving the brief intermission a suitable spacey feel.

18. In Serenitatem

Only at the end of China, during the mesmerising finale entitled The Summit, and in the last movement of Mask could once one hear such ethereal sounds...

The fragile, translucent sonic elements are conjured up via the inimitable Vangelis alchemy of choral and string synthesizer patches, we are hearing evocations of cosmic waves, a sense of vastness and tranquility, made all the more atmospheric by electronic chimes as if they were emanating from some crystals from the depths of Jupiter.

The track fades into total silence and proves that once again, Vangelis has an unsurpassable ability to capture a sense of cosmic vastness via the most economic and restrained palette of sounds.

If one was mesmerised by the sublime finale of China, then the finale of this album will definitely have the same effect on that listener.

Vangelis has, again, taken us on a quintessentially human journey through near-impossible to comprehend distances of space, to colossal scenes effortlessly created by Jupiter... Once again, it is an ode to human endeavour, human ingenuity.

As the Rosetta album demonstrated, and Juno To Jupiter makes it all the more evident, Vangelis can surprise, mesmerise, and stun us with a musical and sonic inventiveness that knows no fatigue even in 2020... after so many decades of relentless and astonishing creativity.

Farewell to a sound perfectionist - On Florian Schneider's passing

It is difficult to write more than the acres of eulogies that have been written on the passing of the co-founder of Kraftwerk, Florian Schneider, at the age of 73.

Thus, one could try a completely different and personal angle instead.

When I first heard Kraftwerk's track Spacelab, I was in my early teens in Ceausescu's communist dictatorship. As there were only a few hours of mostly propaganda-filled TV each day, Saturday evenings were special... There was a 30-minutes-long show called Teleenciclopedia, which was popularising science - and one of its slots was about astronomy and space exploration.

They used a lot of electronic music, which was considered ideologically "safe" and clean, also, the music of the future. For the aesthetic promoted by the propaganda machinery, electronic music was a progressive genre, and usually was significantly less censored than rock, pop, or even classical music was. How ironic it was to have eminently humanist musical creations embraced by the dehumanising totalitarian propaganda, by ideologists who completely misunderstood what the music was about...

So that TV show put me in contact with instrumental electronic music, as they used sections of synthesizers-based tracks... Kraftwerk was one of the electronic legends that made me perk up.

Although their aesthetic was carefully crafted to point to Earth, humans, and, among other things, the dehumanising potential of technology, it was wonderful escapism for me. They could point out what technology could do to human society, but they were not dystopian - quite the opposite really, and often even with subtle humour and irony.

Food rationing, the dangers of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person in the wrong place, the repeated power cuts, endless propaganda in every media, freezing cold class rooms due to heroic savings on heating and electricity were an indescribable opposite to the electronic music sometimes heard on radio and TV.

For me, Kraftwerk was not space music, like Tangerine Dream and some of the 1970s albums by Vangelis were. It was about us, society, and Earth - but it shared a certain sense of melancholy that I liked in the aforementioned electronic legends' music.

It was about another world, whilst rooted in ours. It was about another time, whilst firmly rooted in the era in which the albums were created. Heck, even their album covers for me were phenomenal, as they self-consciously borrowed from the visual language of e.g. Soviet propaganda.

Who can forget the cover of The Man Machine? Many in the "West" didn't realise just how precise and telling the graphic design choices were, from the font to the poses and the colour scheme... We, in the "East", instantly recognised the language from posters all too familiar to us.

To say that Schneider and Kraftwerk were visionaries, well, it would be a much over-used understatement.

They showed me that it is possible to be immensely erudite, technological, compose music about a world of "robots" even, in strict and wide sense, too - but at the same time to be emotional under the surface, and create a truly unique high-tech melancholia. Nobody sounded like Kraftwerk - it was robotic on the surface, but deeply human under the surface.

Also, it was a complete antithesis of the communist propaganda's vision about a technological future. Latter was utterly dehumanised, with complete erosion of individuality... Kraftwerk depicted a downright romantic vision, even when they poked at the darker effects of technology. As robotic as their constructed imagery and performances may have been, the music was about the humans inhabiting the ultra-technological world of the future...

From their light and immensely popular tracks, which smashed up the walls around "laboratory" electronica and blasted it into popular mainstream, to the deeply atmospheric and philosophical compositions like the trailblazing Autobahn or Numbers, the list of era-defining works could go on and on.

Yes, era-defining as much as they were capturing the zeitgeist of respective eras... They even played with our perceptions and interpretations, one key example of double entendre being the track Radioactivity from the album with same title.

Schneider's attention to detail, technical inventiveness, conceptual thinking, and, of course, boundless imagination, has shaped even genres we would never associate with electronic music of any kind.

As he put it, "We have played and been understood in Detroit and in Japan, and that’s the most fascinating thing that could happen. Electronic music is a kind of world music. I think that the Global Village is coming.”

May you be now, for all eternity, in the realm of phenomenally intricate sounds of the Cosmos... Rest in peace...

Organic chemistry: That Which Prevails, the new album by Computerchemist

Computerchemist's ninth album is a solid island of complex Berlin School-style electronica in an ocean of myriad other mainstream / trendy electronic music releases. Once again, instead of taking some 'fashionable' commercial route, the music is true to its central aesthetic - and delivers on that.

The presence of 'organic' instrumentation in the electronic landscape is (or always should be) a very welcomed artistic choice. If one recalls Klaus Krieger's or Chris Franke's drumming on Tangerine Dream records, Klaus Schulze's drumming on his solo albums, or Manuel Göttsching's guitar improvisations enveloped by Schulze's electronic textures, then one knows what these combinations can deliver as an experience for the listener.

What we have here is much more electrifying than a purely synthesised soundscape. Dave Pearson's guitars and the drumming by Zsolt Galantai (of, among others, Ossian fame) adds a vital organic element to the Berlin School sound unfolding in these tracks.

We have tight sequencers, which are captivatingly pulsating and giving structure to the tracks' lush atmospherics, PPG Wave-like characteristic sonic gems (check out the final track especially), and impossible to resist mellotron-like textures. Everything a Berlin School aficionado could possibly want...

However, in addition we have fluid and, one dares to say, emotive guitar leads, with aforementioned drums on the third track. Even the drum programming on the other tracks feels organic and eminently non-robotic, unlike what happens in some other eminently synthesised, even synthetic, sonic journeys.

It makes the tracks feel more fluid, ever-changing, without static sequencer patterns. Things constantly develop, which is increasingly rare in latter-day Berlin School records & jams inundating the internet.

The opening track is already landing us in catchy Berlin School territory, and characteristically, the sequencers are there to provide structural support to animated electronic rock, rather than totally taking over.

Time Is A Great Healer (parts iii-iv) is another good example where we may believe we are in for a digital trip, as PPG Wave-like sounds open the composition, but then we can quickly take a flight with guitars making a solid appearance...

A Dali-esque Dreamer is a superb homage to Edgar Froese, who passed away five years ago. It once again shows how the tracks do not stand still and there is solid compositional development, whilst keeping an almost improvised feel, too with the guitar leads.

The title track, That Which Prevails is again a perfect example how a retro-sounding organ intro can develop into a fiery electronic rock piece.

Yours truly used to say, even write, about classic TD and Schulze gems that there were no straight lines, only waves and curved surfaces in those records. The same accolade applies to this album, too.

While there is clear compositional thinking with structural development, each track achieves that sense of catchy fluidity that normally only comes with inspired improvisations.

Computerchemist's catalogue can be purchased on CD from CDbaby.com and amazon.com in the US or direct from the artist's site via bandcamp.com. Digital distribution is through bandcamp.com, CDbaby.com, Apple iTunes, Spotify and other popular streaming services.

From vintage to new territories: Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger's Neuland Project

It is fair to say that a collaboration album from two musicians like Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger is no ordinary event in the timeline of electronic music history. In latter history, both names occupy a significant section with not just their time spent as members of the veritable institution that was and is Tangerine Dream, but also with their solo careers.

First of all, one must stress: this is not an album that rides some fashionable wave of mainstream electronica. Also, whilst it does have some not quite veiled references to musical elements one first heard in Tangerine Dream compositions, Neuland is not a recreation of some period from that band's history.

Something that may instantly captivate the listener, right from the first track, is the very evident pedigree of the two musicians. Whilst both had notable solo careers, the immediately recognisable Tangerine Dream DNA is very much present in the opening track's sequencer work.

The sequenced background and vintage-sounding lead propels us back to the mid-to-late 1970s TD sound. Thus, the opening track (Cascade 39) is in many ways pointing to a fondly remembered past rather than futuristic soundscapes.

Things change several times as the album progresses - already the second track, Road To Danakil, shows that darker atmospherics and thundering electronics are not at all alien to the two composers. In a way, one might recognise a certain gravitas in the arrangements and sonic choices, familiar to those who have heard the Machines Of Desire recent solo album by Peter Baumann.

One could always play the game of trying to guess which musician was responsible for which parts of the compositions one hears, and in this collaboration album, too it could be a rewarding game.

Clearly, there are solid sonic fingerprints from Baumann, the playful melodic motifs that punctuate the electronic soundscapes are unmistakably his - and make one think of his solo albums of yesteryear. Such motifs turn up in many places, from the aforementioned Road To Danakil to Dream 9 to Counting On Time (where not only the melodic pattern, but also the digital choir-like choice of synth patch is a direct pointer to e.g. Machines Of Desire).

The way in which Baumann & Haslinger can build effortless-sounding, fluid, and constantly evolving sonic ambiences is very apparent in the mentioned Counting On Time, and Long Now Icarus or Measure 3.

Something that starts as an almost ambient track can evolve into a playful, than animated track like 54_NOVO, with catchy melodic patterns, too.

The final track, Longing In Motion, is another example of something that evolves from the ambiences of vast cosmic spaces to a pulsating, then rather majestic, piece of electronic dreamscape. The forces that were unleashed in tracks like Dream 9 are held back here and gradually, subtly added to the discourse, with gentle pulsating patterns that make us feel firmly rooted in a Berlin School-style electronic Universe.

When it comes to the overall sound world of the album, a couple of aspects are worthy of highlighting.

First of all, it has a quite minimalist feel, in the sense that the sparseness of the arrangements might really stand out to some listeners.

This is not electronica with vast layers of sounds, everything is kept very distinctive and one really can very often count on one hand how many simultaneous elements are at play in the arrangements.

This creates an aesthetic where every detail stands out, as the very translucent and sparse arrangements do not want to, and cannot, mask or blur anything. The listener is not drowned in electronic showing-off of might, instead, one is allowed to contemplate often isolated sparse shimmers and specks of light in vast cosmic darkness.

One example is M-Tron Field, where often just one synth patch with just a few well-isolated distinct notes hover above a background pad (or not even that, just silence and vast reverberations). Every individual sound is allowed to take shape and float around, if it so wishes to, without being drowned in huge electronic orchestrations.

The other, more technical, aspect is the choices made for the depiction of rather astral spaces. Yes, there are some delays and phasing, however most often the task of suggesting vast sonic spaces goes to immense reverbs. Both percussive and melodic synth sounds can feel as they occupy a space only inhabited by some vast galaxies... and with such acoustic backdrop, the vintage leads (like the fiery solo in Measure 3) stand out even more and grab one's attention.

For an even more general and overall remark, there is an element of Neuland that is highly commendable even if someone's tastes or preconceptions might not actually match what one hears on this album.

Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger, in a stellar collaboration like this and with the very special pedigree they have, could have chosen to produce a trendy, even perhaps safe, mainstream electronica album.

They haven't - and it is a positive.

It is an honest album, that is consistent with their individual styles and compositional preferences, as proven also by the recognisable musical and technological choices they made for this album.

In today's EM landscape it is refreshing to hear such individualist approach and risk taking instead of some drive to fit a successful-sounding pre-existing mould.