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Silicon Dream - Andromeda - 08-Feb-09 06:40 AM
The Geat German Dreamer and Producer Klaus Munzert - is one of visionaries of sampler music, back in 1988 year he instigated a real revolution in heads of listeners and melomans. Magnetism and aura of this Giant of production were the main example for many artists.

Klaus Munzert has a rare timbre of voice, both tremendously-pleasant and easily recognizable. His musical ideas and his faultless taste were fresh and innovate. He dreamed, that one day vivid expression of the feelings and emotions through the single computer toolkit will become possible!

It is hard to surprise the modern listener this way, but twenty years ago it was the real technological breakthrough - to use the computer as a musical stand. Silicon Dream played a crucial role in the history of sample based music development and pleasant sound of synthpop. Inspired by early works of Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, Klaus was able to create conceptualism both high grade and accessible to the common listener. The author submerged the audience into the fantastical world of musical dreams, so they would travel with him on a time machine, empathizing, trusting and loving as he did...

"Andromeda" is a part of a unique Silicon Dream "Time Machine" album. Andromeda follows mini-symphonic "Space Intro" reverie based on the idea American Indians voyaging through space. The story of the starship lost in space embodied in sad dreaminess and stirring atmosphere. This composition delightfully expresses the idea of loneliness of human race in endless reaches of a deep space and remoteness from a home planet. A dense, note-skipping bass line, underlines romanticism of vocal parts. Multilayered percussion parts by a legendary drum-machine Roland TR-808, interlaced with weeping parts of electro-guitar, stereo-effected samples of flying, falling, and "Mayday"-signals, overall masterful structure of a track and warmth of the sound all combine into the audio masterpiece you can listen to time and time again.

The fans of Pet Shop Boys consider and not without a cause that the bass line in "Andromeda" was borrowed from another hit - "Paninaro" which has been created by the British duet in 1986. I want to remind that Pet Shop Boys very often plagiarized and covered well-known songs of past. As to Silicon Dream, Klaus smartly used elements of other artists adaptations in his compositions. We could even call it tautology, or even plagiarizing the plagiarists. On other hand this tautology was of the sort that forces the listener to think about music. Munzert sampled pieces from M|A|R|R|S, Bomb The Bass, Off / 16 Bit, Hithouse and others. And in such a brilliant way, that sometimes plagiarism sounded much better than original.

"Andromeda" - is the international hit, repeatedly rereleased on numerous Italo-Disco dance collections in the end of 80's. This track is rightfully considered as one of the best Silicon Dream tracks. According to Klaus the secret of success of this project is very simple: laborious work and belief in himself.

Tegma - Lo-Fi Adventures - 17-Oct-08 05:19 AM
The release on the Czech label Tribal Vision Records with the Scandinavian internals “Lo-Fi Adventures” is both an ode to technology of the contemporary dance music and tribute to retro styles. Album has menacing techno-marches (East Block (Cccp Mix)), and boisterous mix of disco and electro (What the Fuzz, Twister), and somewhat exhausting in its obtrusiveness bits of club techno-trance (Computer Disorder). In the new Tegmatekk release there is something distinctive from fresh dance-retrospectives, it is a clear idea of Sound Rotations. In Lo-Fi Adventures those rotations exist in almost every track: rotary sound pressure systems (Monday Star), whispering fx gyros and rattle of percussive blades (Who Stole My Oscilator), peeling turbo splashing of the synth parts (Circles) and magnetized vortices of growling transforming basses (Crank Up).

It is notable that the booklet from original CD says: musicians spent more time repairing and replacing broken equipment then recording material. The results of coping with technical problems like burned out processors, sound cards and hoarse sound speakers for a whole year of uninterrupted work are 16 tracks, 10 of which ended up part of the album.

Overall sound picture of this release is quite immaculate and is of rather high level. Collection of stereo events is quite common for current Tribal Vision releases and is pleasing to the ear. Layered compositions, trigger-based delays and filtering of the main instruments are also applied very tidily and with no audible flaws. For some the sound may appear somewhat dirty with all the hissing, whispering, crackling and samples distorted by vocoder. However, as Omar explained to me all those sounds are a tribute to the Lo-Fi aesthetics, which permeates the whole atmosphere of the album. In other words this is an aural mini-trip to the world of analog retro-culture, which was created using computers and high-end technology.

Alas, like any other monotonous process rotation could get boring rather quickly. That is why this release seemed a little bit too pushy to me, personally. But more attentive and aesthetical listener would certainly find the zest in this album and would return to it time and time again. In any case Lo-Fi Adventures deserves careful attention.