“An album designed for lovers of the ambient and seductive rhythms of the Berlin School”
1 Warps 8:33
2 Sleeping TG77 6:49
3 Temporal Paradox 13:42
4 Eta Carinae 7:59
5 Stable Wormhole 8:27
6 Dimensional Drift 5:41
7 Echo Mapping 7:51
8 Tachyon 10:17
(CD/DDL 50:06) (V.F.)
(Ambient Beats, Berlin School)
Martin Stürtzer is another artist who has had a very creative pandemic year with no less than 7 albums and a few concerts performed in his studio and then broadcast live on various digital platforms. Entitled Stay at Home, these performances were mostly improvisation sessions. According to compilations on his Bandcamp site, more than 100,000 viewers have watched the German musician improvise his favorite styles: ambient, Berlin School and Dub Electronica. I told you about this style in the review on the mini album P-Brane. TEMPORAL PARADOXE is torn between ambient rhythms and Berlin School. Two styles which have no difficulty in coming together and which gives us a good 60 minutes of magnetizing EM. The album in downloadable format includes seven compositions, while the CD version contains a bonus track which appears on the album The Omarion Nebula.
Warps rises up with a fascinating chloroform layer which docks in an ambient rhythm, floating with the sparkles of tiny metallic elytra. Its decor is quite interesting with these layers that have this sibylline hue and turn into a sordid moan of supernatural beasts. Ballast noise also emerges from this decoration as well as filaments which have a more metallic appearance. Arpeggios are grafted to this rhythm, adding a delicate harmonic portion that sway comfortably in this Mephistophelic setting. The movement of the bass sequences injects an organic dynamism into Warps which seems comfortable in its notion of floating rhythm. So is Warps! So will be the 6 other compositions of TEMPORAL PARADOXE. Everything happens at the level of the sequencer and the rhythm lines that it weaves. Minimalist and hypnotic with its series of 3 keys jumping in an ascending vision, Sleeping TG77 comes out of the speakers with a more lively attitude. The upward movement of the sequencer is in Berlin School mode while the sound mass which envelops it and develops more slowly than the rhythm eyeing for a vision of Dark Ambient. Aside from this increasing opacity, the rhythm maintains its presence by injecting more resonances into the parallel sequences which have become detached from the main movement. We stay in the field of ambient rhythm until the long title-track deploys a rhythmic arsenal of the sequencer. We forget the decor, which is roughly similar to the first two titles, to live to the rhythms of the sequencer which develops a mass of jumping keys, dribbled keys and harmonic ones in a rhythmic crossroads that meets our expectations of Berliner Lover. Speed and intensity stay at the same address up until the 7th minute which imposes a transition bridge built around morphic waltzes from synth pads possessed by luminous lamentations. The sequencer again activates its rhythmic line, which is more hesitant at the beginning, 90 seconds later. Little by little, Temporal Paradox is resuming its rhythm rights. A stationary rhythm this time, but where is grafted an intensity renewed by an even more compact cluster at the level of the keys' dribbling. A change in a movement that downright eats our obsession. Here, like in the hypnotic Eta Carinae which leads us into a sublime rhythmic canon. A sequencer cannon that makes its keys leap in long magnetizing zigzags. A great line of bass pulses enters it and splits the movement by making untie the shadows of some keys detach, which will spin now in the same sense as this magnetizing sequenced slalom. A must in this album which possibly initiates the structure of Stable Wormhole, another ambient hypnotic track of which the envelope captivates a little more here than elsewhere in the album by being deliciously carried by a spiral movement of the sequencer. Dimensional Drift is a nice ambient title which makes me irremediably think of some very good Steve Roach in a more cosmic vibe. That brings us to Echo Mapping which exploits another figure of ambient rhythm taking inspiration from Eta Carinae and Stable Wormhole. The CD version comes with a bonus track, Tachyon which belongs to the album The Omarion Nebula. A very nice invitation to discover this album with a movement as seductive and lively as the title track of TEMPORAL PARADOXE. An album designed for lovers of the ambient and seductive rhythms of the Berlin School.
Sylvain Lupari (February 11th, 2021) ***¾**
Available at Martin Stürtzer Bandcamp
I liked this album very much. Thanks for the pointing.