CZUKAY & U-SHE: TIME AND TIDE

Not sure why this is filed under "live"; actually it's a studio album. Holger Czukay's major competence is certainly rather as a sound explorer and master of long soundscapes than as a traditional songwriter. Doing an album like "Time and Tide" with 16 songs of normal length is an unusual thing for him to do and I was quite curious how this would play out. And what we get is indeed something quite unusual. This is a collaboration with his partner/wife (?) U-She, who sings, wrote the lyrics and five of the songs. Some of the songs are indeed better described as songs, whereas some others rather fall in the "soundscape" category (although all have "proper singing"), and sound experiments, samples etc. are near at any time. There is much variety; there are ballad-like songs, dark atmospheric and sometimes almost meditative parts (reminding me of "Traeum mal wieder" from "Der Osten ist rot"), some quite minimalist parts,Holger's typical guitar, bass and horn playing known already from some Can recordings, and some quite interesting rhythm programming that gives some kind of unearthly spin on 4/4. U-She's voice fits most of the music very well. She doesn't appear to be very flexible as a singer but there are some things she does well, mostly somewhat slow and dark mysterious tunes. At times she uses her voice more as an instrument with a certain Damo Suzuki-like improvisation attitude (although her voice is really very different from Damo's; she is less "percussive" and rather does long and smooth). Her German accent is strong at times (which I as a compatriot don't like, but I know people of other nationalities are often less critical of this and may find it rather charming - I on the other hand love Slavic and Italian accents that I know their own compatriots find annoying...).

A lot of work and ideas went obviously into this, and it is stunningly unique and original, although not all the ideas work well. The tunes aren't anywhere near catchy and take some getting used to (although many are not that complex), and there is the odd one that I find rather annoying, and a sequence of slow songs toward the end drags a bit - generally the album could have done with a faster injection here and there. 3 1/2 stars which I round to 4 to make people aware of this experience which as nobody can deny is truly special. It's your call how convincing you'll find it, but give it a chance!