LA LUNA

Something of an oddity even in Holger Czukay's decidedly eccentric discography, this 'electronic night ceremony' is 47 minutes of minimal electronica that defies easy classification. There's a steady pulse throughout, a kind of industrial churning with a steady beat underneath and a couple of higher pitched rhythmic sounds in the foreground. Various other beats and sounds, presumably picked up on Holger's short wave radio, flit in and out of the mix and about half way through his muse/partner U She's voice joins the proceedings. And that's pretty much it. Highly atmospheric, with some intriguing sounds and samples here and there, but rather less substance than usual.

2 stars for this not because it's bad - if you're in the right mood it can be quite compelling, although U She's voice seems to divide opinion sharply - but because this is really one for hard core fans rather than the curious newcomer. If you haven't heard any Holger Czukay before, try Movies or On The Way To The Peak Of Normal first. If you're a fan, be prepared for one of his more minimal excursions, turn the lights down and prepare to lose yourself in a dark soundscape for three quarters of an hour.

Holger Czukay is certainly the most complex, intuitive and cerebral personality of the krautrock legend CAN. In this recent effort he explores the hypnogonic-magnetic-psych acoustic potentialities of sounds obtained by electronic programs and synthesised technologies. The approach is rather similar to things ever developed in the fascinating Canaxis or even in Moving picture (track: floatspace) and in Good Morning Story (track: Mirage). Nevertheless the musical object is less brilliant, the ideas less inspired and less consistent. The atmospheres are monotonous, admitting small micro changes and large synthesised waves covered by hypno discreet minimal pulses in the distance and various cloudy-noisy effects. It is mechanical, asceptical, amorphous and sometimes heartless despite efficiently immersive-meditative electro movements. Icy, homogeneous and endless abstract soundscapes for a visceral intimate voyage into the unkwon.

Excuse my manners!

Having been listening for a while to a bunch of new music (at least for me), some of it included here in PA (Cozmic Corridors, Far East Family Band, Urna, etc.) and some of it not . Gladly and obviously this 2000, release by Holger Czukay, ¨La Luna¨ is.

Gladly for me, because its ratings go from 2 to tops 3 PA stars. But to each its own!

A single 47 minute odyssey, of a drone-like prog/electronic cosmic music, balanced with a sophisticated primitiveness in its ritualistic drumming rhythms . The fact that he leaves outside his knack to spoil good music for some cheap laughs, for starters in his own way is groundbreaking. Of course it does not stop being playful, but even that is subdued in order to achieve its goal and purpose, music wise.

Evocative, dynamic , well costructed, focused and a fresh approach to this kind of personal music-conception of a trip to the stars, which every prog-musician is allowed to perform once in a while. Czukay´s understanding of percussion and rhythms, translates this spacious sometimes minimalistic voyage into something deeply human yet detached from pleasing any kind of target-audience. U-She's crooning kind of singing here and there, softens and counterpoints the darkest edges.

I myself, am deeply surprised. So opposite to my counterpart prog/reviewer's ratings, if there is a record of this guy I will highly recommend to any prog-audiophile is this un-pretentious and unobtrusive although highly hypnotic and accomplished effort. Which lenght in time is a vigorous deadline, so no time wasted, nor his nor yours!

The electronic side outweights by far the few Krautrock references.

****4 ¨Beyond just mere good¨ PA stars.

First, a personal note: like many fans I prefer the music of CAN's mischievous short-wave radio painter when he's in a more lighthearted mood, composing Odes to Perfume or Persian Love songs. But there's something oddly hypnotic about this minimalist curiosity: an unbroken 47-minute "Electric Night Ceremony" recorded live at Holger's Lab on May 17, 1996 (and yes, I checked: there was a full moon over Cologne that night).

Don't expect the soothing environmental ambience of a Brian Eno album, however. Czukay's tone poem was built around a sinister mechanical pulse not far removed from the dystopian rhythms enslaving all those subterranean workers in Fritz Lang's 1927 film classic "Metropolis". He then goes to creative lengths to put a human touch on his automaton bleepfest, adding ephemeral layers of pirated radio signals, odd percussion accents, random vocal interruptions and so forth.

As usual Czukay is playing the studio like a musical instrument, and was apparently so mesmerized by the effort that he forgot his trusted French Horn. There isn't much room here for comic relief, but when High Priestess U-She (real name Ursula Kloss; Holger's muse since the end of the last millennium) approaches the electronic altar and starts muttering about "the Mother of the Universe", it's hard not to imagine Holger's tongue lodged firmly in his cheek.

There's actually a lot happening over the album's uncut three-quarter hour length, at a level of perception audible only with both ears wedged between the speakers. For better or worse, this is one of those experiments that needs your full attention to appreciate, but is best enjoyed when only half-heard as background radiation.