TRANCE-FORMATION (WITH THE SECRET SOCIETY)

Eberhard Schoener made a name in classical music as a sound arranger and director. Early in his career he distinguished himself through a handful of challenging electronic-experimental albums devoted to long "evanescent" driven synthscapes, contemporary ethno-ritual-theatrical performances. His most notorious effort is the mesmeric Bali-Agung recorded one year before. Signed on the legendary Innovative Communication, Trance-Formation follows the path defined by Bali-Agung but put the emphasise on religious motives, providing abundant human-liturgical-epiphanic choirs sustained by unusual hypno-pulsating arpeggios (1. Falling in trance), subtle synth moves and harsh psych guitars. Shape Of Things To Come provides eerie sound textures closed to the kosmische peacefulness of Schulze, The Cosmic Jokers but always with a heavy religious inflected accent. Sign of emotions is a more conventional-standardised space rockin track but according to me this it is the most powerful piece on this album, utterly meditative and fragile beauty. The self title track features atonal-weird experiments based on organ chords. Trance-Formation remains a multidirectional-versatile kosmische rock album, a bit fashionable but a nice listening experience.

It's been too many years since listening to this album (which I should borrow again from library), but I have some positive memories of it. Ehm... did I really once confuse this musician with Eberhard Weber, a famous jazz bassist? *Blushes* But hey, this album has also terrific bass playing (by Hansi Ströer) and at the time of my mistake I probably knew Weber only from Kate Bush's album The Dreaming. Mistake forgiven-?

This album was released on the -IC- label which has introduced me to countless Electronic/New Instrumental Music artists during a couple of decades. I recommend that label to all friends of the genre: their output is never lame New Age but (mostly German), more or less "Kosmische", electro-acoustic music, sometimes with suitable pop elements. Schoener is rather eclectic within the genre: he uses on this album a chamber orchestra and two different choirs (boys' and monks', the latter bringing a strong Gregorian flavour), and the player list includes e.g. Andy Summers on guitar. The composer-keyboardist himself has a background in classical music.

This music is trance-like, hypnotic, deep and exciting. Sound is excellent and crisp, all the details embracing the listener's ears. Two tracks out of five last over 12 minutes. Recommended if you like artists like Klaus Schulze or Dead Can Dance.

Fourteen years before Enigma, ever curious musician/composer Eberhard Schoener was exploring the possibilities of melding electronic beats with liturgically (and ethnically) derived vocal themes. But Schoener, never willing to sit with one idea when he can throw in a handful, also covers ambient electronica and analogue space drift in this cohesive 1977 album. The composer plays moog, organ, piano and mellotron while the tasty guitar cutting through the keys is courtesy of Andy Summers (Police). It may seem an unlikely collaboration, but Summers is a skilled and versatile guitarist whose presence here adds much to the music. A transporting and satisfying album.

Although the original Harvest LP will try to convince you this isn't Gregorian music, it really is. The notes even try to tell you this is more like Gamelan, but that more applies to Bali-Agung, where he did explore Indonesian gamelan with German electronic. Here he explores Gregorian chants with his brand of electronic music. Now one might think this is some sort of proto-Enigma, but to me if someone tried something proto-Enigma in 1977, they would have likely added a disco beat, and Eberhard Schoener naturally stayed as far from that as possible. What you get is choral singing, male and female, frequently in Gregorian chant style with Schoener providing synths and Mellotron. The music doesn't go at a particularly fast pace, but I am rather surprised to see Andy Summers showing what he's made of on guitar, because I never seen him do that in The Police (which happens that all three would soon play for Schoener for the album Flashback, and Sting and Andy on the original Video-Magic). I get reminded a bit of what Tangerine Dream may have sounded like in 1977 had they continued the direction they were doing on the Ohr label (i.e. Alpha Centauri, Zeit, Atem), but with that added on Gregorian chanting. To me, I find this more interesting than Enigma's MCMXC a.D. as there's no annoying dance beats to get in the way (although I did like the samples of Aphrodite's Child's 666 on MCMXC a.D.) and it's done in a truly wonderful progressive electronic context. As it's clear from what I've heard from this guy was that he never repeated himself, and the albums that I own only proves that, from the droning meditation sound of Meditations to the Gregorian chants of this one (Trance-Formation) to the Police going full-on Mellotron-heavy prog (Video- Magic) and the gamelan of Bali-Agung, it's clear he didn't want to stagnate. Certainly Trance-Formation is one of his better albums and worth having.