LAYERING BUDDHA

Absolutely gorgeous and "transcendant" dronescapings from this German electronic musician. Avoid his band (Monolake) and go directly to his solo works; his cinematic, sonic electronic excursions can be associated to Brian Eno's contemplations and Klaus Schulze's dark isolation. Each track provides a luminous electronic hypnosis for synth equipements and electronic effects. The choice, selection of sounds gives wonderful aesthetic and "physical" droning textures, always delivering a meditative, "visceral" listening. All pieces are flowing in suspension, in an eerie, sometime creepy ambience. "Layer 001" is a spaced out electronic composition with really "moody", "glacial" elements. Same thing for "Layer 002" with its massive devastating spherical drones. Some compositions feature metaphoric, amplified sounds taken from the nature ("Layer 007"). Clouds of sustained drones also remind me some minimalist experimentations by pioneers as Phill Niblock... Haunting, "kosmische" world of sounds! A must for spacey-kraut lovers and those who are captivated by agitated, immersive drones.

Polished, creative and resourceful as electronic music composer Robert Henke´s musical language is, it enriches itself between symphonic like structures, deep, yet minimal "Cosmic" atmospheres and field like recordings.

"Layering Buddha", 2006, a 10 tracks release, sets and compresses his music worlds into solid unities which rely mostly in its attractive, focused and detailed, yet abstract, perfectly threaded symphonic/drone like music composition.

To explain this work in some music genre's terms, besides its electronic symphonic nature it is relevant to mention a close connection to Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" (1975), but nevertheless this taken as a reference not a comparison due to the fact that this work has a unique personality which certainly holds no discretion, opposite to that, it is subtly explosive or piercing even menacing, more than once.

Hypnotic, intense, rich, vivid, very well written , performed and recorded.

****4.5 PA stars.