Recoil – Hydrology

Brilliant nugget of music where minimalism meets electro.
This isn't pop and it isn't sterile observations on the possibilities of electronic music but instead an amalgam of musical style drawn out of traditional European chamber music composing co-mingling in a frothy mixture of repetitive trance like music and Reich-like aesthetics.
You can clearly hear what Wilder brought to the composition table when he joined Depeche Mode. Hes brilliant at typing obscure motifs with tight ballsy electronic Kraftwerk like rhythms.
I for one am glad to own this and its stands head and shoulders above his later releases of which I feel luke warm about except perhaps Bloodline which has its moments.

A really stunning record by Alan Wilder, the long time member and arranger with Depeche Mode. One can very much hear the key elements he brought to DM in this 3 track 12", where he expertly accomplishes a wide range of experimental and moody styles.

"Grain" is a piano-lead, soundtrack style piece, with tons of tension and mood. "Stone" starts with DM style vocal synth stabs (very reminiscent of "It Doesn't Matter Two") before dropping into an industrial electro groove, then breaking down into a long, spacey ambient section, and finishing up in electronic soundtrack bliss - a really amazing track and very ahead of its time. "The Sermon" is a lengthy ambient piece with droning modular hum backing an arpeggiated Steve Reich feel, that gets 80's dance, then goes weird and spacey in all the right ways.

An essential record for anyone into everything from Berlin school electronics to Industrial.