KALEIDOSCOPE

If people are not familiar with Bernd Kistenmacher's music I must say that is very reminiscent of Klaus Schulze mid period and in particular with the new musical direction taken at the beginning of the 80's with albums such as trancefer. Consequently the synthesized ambiences are gorgeously epic and accessible at the same time. You won't find any experimental arrengements or dark, moody drone sequences. The atmosphere is very light, soft and evocative, including a lot of melodic fragments, hypno-rythmical patterns, helicopter-like drums, numerical synth vibes. All the songs are flowing and moving but we can immediately recognise the typical 80's functional-easy listening-space music behind it. Time to time it features really common-like, mainstream melodies for a nice nocturnal electronic romance (Quitness & Ecstasy). The cover definitely reminds me Moondawn from K. Schulze, but the comparison stops here. Kaleidoscope contains a warm serie of sci-fi kosmische melodic electronic suites. A valuable listening but nothing really challenging for the genre. From the same artist, Wake up at the sun is a much more amazing & convincing release neglecting the entertaining pop-ish aspects of Kaleidoscope. Recommended for fans of Rolf Trostel, Robert Schroeder and Klaus Schulze at their most academic moments.