Bernd Friedmann – Leisure Zones / Erholungsgebiete

Although not exactly something I put in heavy rotation, this is one ambient album I find myself returning to at least a few times a year. Designed to sit deep in the background, Leisure Zones is pure ambient music for loudspeakers, not headphones. It consists mostly of slowly morphing pinkish noise which lazily rises and falls and resembles the sound of a distant freeway or some sort of massive factory zone or shipyard, heard from miles away and cloaked in ominous fog. From time to time, sharp electrical hums fade in and out as if high-voltage power lines are lurking just out of sight. In the album's only surprising moment, bass-heavy clangs, as might come from hundred-ton pieces of solid metal, ricochet about, then disappear. As one can imagine, this album is "cold" and "industrial", yet it's one of the best-constructed examples of this sort of environment-transforming drone music out there.

This is something for people that dislike silence; you know, getting into the car and immediately turning on the radio, or taking breakfast with the telly on. No, I’m not making this up, the album even gives clear instructions – I quote – "in order to let the music mingle with the natural disquiet of the atmosphere it is absolutely necessary that the volume is accordingly regulated". In fact this <B>Leisure Zones</B> makes me think of those picnics you have on the "green area" of a major gas station near the highway… sun, a soggy sandwich, instant coffee and the continuous drone and whooshing of nearby heavy traffic. So as you can imagine, not exactly what I was waiting for.