Each track has its mission, and each assignment is carried out to a high standard, with a solid ambience that crushes its way through the cold grayness of the industrial landscape – it masquerades all fear.
[Listen | Purchase] Conrad Schnitzler was an early member of Tangerine Dream and a founding member of Kluster and, therefore, as a renown pioneer of electronic music, offers up some serious construction work with his latest release of sound combinations.
The album immediately launches into tasteful composition, full of authentic sound waves that literally springboard from a cultural history of pioneering German electronica. It’s fair to say that German composers certainly seem to have a way with synthesizers. Con-Struct is testament to that, with its deep chambers of synthesized depth, loose gem like fragments, and pockets of unique sound – all divided around eight concrete segments. It flaunts the significance of analog, and showcases the classics in terms of synthesizers – a very nice combination indeed.
A powerful engine to drive this weighty vessel forward emerges with “Con-Struct 2,” taking on a symphonic soundboard, set onboard a mighty craft. “Con-Struct 3” is largely made up of chamber like echoes, contributing to its racing beat and sometimes masked with its varied delay reverb effects. A haunted cathedral, stepping into trance, with distended backdrops that are not only deep and meaningful, but also visible against such stone like structure. Its beat finally fades leaving an aftermath of dreamy swollen backdrops.
An extension of electric magic leads us to “Con-Struct 4” – a sharp shimmer; a laser, with no beat to guide, therefore giving way to a very expanding reign which extends towards “Con-Struct-5,” channeling its way through an empty subway or tunnel – deep into the night, emerging at the other end, and stopping by a concrete bridge that is home to a deserted freeway. Despite the lonely tones found within “Con-Struct 5,” this is an album largely made up of different styled laser beams – all layered to harmonic synchronicity and structured pulse like vibration – certainly as is the case with “Con-Struct 6,” spending its time mainly underground, echoing mercilessly through the concrete like melody, and exclusively finding its way to freedom. More dreamlike calls are made with “Con-Struct 8,” slightly damp, grey with sub vibrations that rupture steel foundations. And there is evidently plenty here to create a significant landmark with each construction evolving, as it should, to become symbolic worldly structures of synthesized strength.
Throughout, the linkage is perfect. Each track has its mission, and each assignment is carried out to a high standard, with a solid ambience that crushes its way through the cold grayness of the industrial landscape – it masquerades all fear.
Con-Struct is out now on M=minimal. [Listen | Purchase]
