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Klaus Schulze - Pete Namlook & K. Schulze: The Dark Side Of The Moog IV CD (album) cover

PETE NAMLOOK & K. SCHULZE: THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOOG IV

Klaus Schulze

Progressive Electronic


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ZowieZiggy
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Fourth leg of this KS project. The subtitle ("Three Pipers At The Gates Of Dawn"), has little to with the original work.

As usual, this album is sliced into several parts, although there are nor much differences between each of them. I reckon that it is the least enjoyable of the series so far and the repetitive and melody less "Part II" which lasts for about twenty two minutes is not the most pleasant KS moment I have ever lived. And you might know that I've been through enormous lot..

This is nothing else than pure dance oriented music with little passion. In each prior work out of the same theme, there were always several great moments available: melodic or icy cold or spacey. Very little of this can be expected while discovering this fourth part of the "Moog" story.

I guess that the great man should have condensed some of these in order to release higher quality items for the fans. But his decision was different. So, as a fan, I cal only depict what I hear. And this experience is not very enjoyable to say the least.

It is a real challenge to go through these long twenty two minutes of no musical harmony. Fortunately, what comes after is more KS friendly if I might say so. More ambient and fine, more sweetness in the conceptual music, more harmony, more beauty.

My fave is "Part VI" which leaves some souvenir of the superb SOYCD. But it took a hell of time to get there! Still, it is rather monotonous after a while and only die-hard KS fans could swallow this without too much of a gastric problem. Especially when one takes into account all what is preceding.

It was not a great idea to pick up this album as my first review of the New Year, but so is it. Each of the three prior ones of the series are better, so: don't worry about this number four. Just skip it. You'll avoid the dreadful "Part VIII" which is mostly all dance oriented and just awful. Press next.

Two stars for this album is very well paid.

Report this review (#258830)
Posted Friday, January 1, 2010 | Review Permalink
Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars "Three Pipers at the Gates of Dawn"

Yes, three pipers. A third artist is added to the project, Bill Laswell, as yet unknown to me but according to Wikipedia it's a versatile musician (bass guitaris/producer) that has been busy in diverse genres such as funk, metal, jazz, punk and ambient, leading to hair-scratching co-operations ranging from Motorhead to Herbie Hancock or from PIL to this Dark Side of The Moog series with Schulze and Namlook.

I wouldn't be able to single out what his contributions exactly are but the result is a Dark Side of The Moog chapter that is entirely different from the first three. This album veers off into more techno directions. No 'car tuning beats' or too obtrusive rhythms, but it's Dance nevertheless. So your enjoyment will depend on your beat-resistance. The quality is undeniable though but as usual in this series, not consistent.

Part I offers the known recipe of sound effects and slowly flowing melodies and minor chords. But Part II doesn't beat around the bush anymore. A particularly dark sequence on a rhythmically pulsed single bass note introduces a 20 minutes techno piece with an almost continuous 4/4 beat, sounding very close to the legion of concurrent artists that had been influenced by Schulze (Underworld, the Orb). The mixing is a bit strange, particularly at the end of the piece, rhythmic accents sound lots louder then the actual music. It makes for a confusing experience, but it's very captivating to my ears.

Part III returns to ambient textures and doesn't feature much else then sounds from the bushes and highly reverberated didgeridoo. Part IV dwells a bit longer in similar ghostly moods. Part V is short but sharp techno moment with a typical droning nihilistic beat. Laswell adds a little playfulness with nicely looping bass line, too bad this wasn't explored a bit further.

Entirely different sounds again on Part VI, the best piece here, featuring some sparse cosmic synth chords and a moody clean guitar improvisation. No one is actually credited for playing guitar though. Part VII is a one tone reverberated and tuned-down gong sound, quite morose. Part VIII continues the bass line and beats from Part V but it fails to build up to anything groovy or entrancing. The short Part IX ends the album with some interesting flanger effects that could have developed into something again but doesn't hit the mark really

Probably this shouldn't be listed under Schulze at all. His contributions are marginal and the resulting album sits miles away from his usual fare, unlikely to please his fans. As a progressive techno album it also doesn't fully deliver but it's still a good album. Approach with caution as your enjoyment will largely depend on your affinity with 90's chill-out techno.

Report this review (#260307)
Posted Monday, January 11, 2010 | Review Permalink
octopus-4
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
3 stars For the fourth episode of the collaboration between Schulze and Pete Namlook, the project becomes temporarily a trio with the addition of some Bill Laswell. This is particularily evident in the opening track, which semms to be made of three different acts, from three different composers all mixed together.

Anyway, as for the previous chapters, also now the tracks are named just "part 1" to "part 9", despite the fact that they aren't so continuous that I can't consider them part of a single suite.

Part 1 has good moments, espcially in the most spacey segments, when only keyboard chords, background voices and very few electronic effects send the listener to the cosmos. The orchestral accents by surrogate strings sound a bit outplaced to me, but apart of that, it's quite my pot.

Part 2 is the longest track, scoring over 20 minutes. It seems that a time machine has sent it here directly from the 80s. It reminds to the Tangerine Dream of the Virgin period, even if Schulze was already out of TD at that time. There's some melody in background. It requires some attention. The first sudden change arrives around minute 8, when the chord progression turns to minors, while the foreground bass/drums loop has still no variations. After 4 more minutes, more percussions are added to enrich the basic loop with melodic whistles behind and electronic noises including unintelligible voices. As a Tangerine Dream addict as I am, of course I like this track, including its unexpected closure.

Electronic birds resounding full of reverb into a sort of cave have an Ummagumma feel without a Pict but with distorted voices like an astronaut falling into a black hole, later turned into a Tibetan guttural sound. I think Part 3 can be called "psychedelic". It's less than 5 minutes long but I would have liked it doubled at least. It fades seamlessly into part 4 which is a short interstellar travel.

At this point it's like we are effectively into a suite. Part 5 is based again on a percussive loop. Unfortunately, half of this two minutes track is nothing more that music in 4/4 ideal for a rave party. Listenable but unnecessary.

Another smooth transition and part 6 surprises us with a kind of spanish guitar over a floydian base reminding of the intro of Shine on you crazy diamond. It's the first time since the beginning of this project that I find something floydian other than the album title. Well it's not David Gilmour, but listen and let me know...It's likely Laswell who is known for being also a guitarist.

Part 7 is just two minutes of reverbed deadly bells transitioned into part 8 that's...the kind of track that makes me change station when I hear something of that kind on the radio. Are you on ecstasy, dancing and sweating like a monkey? If not, just skip it, even if what seems to be a guitar in the background is not completely bad.

Part 9 is just a minute of midi joke with some drone snare.

2.5 stars rounded up for track 6, where in my opinion they should have closed the album.

Report this review (#2925297)
Posted Wednesday, May 17, 2023 | Review Permalink

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