ETHEREAL

Laurent Schieber has done it again! Just when you think the Berlin School sound has been played out, Laurent releases something new that just keeps upping the ante! The second of these three epics of progressive electronic music may be my favorite Berlin School song ever made!

1. "Stratums of Seraphic Voices" (26:28) a variety of Moog Modular-sourced chords weave together for the first three minutes of this one. The plasticized percussive sounds MIDI-ed within the "drum" and rhythm sequence track (reminding me very much of the sounds produced from Blue Man Group music) that develop and establish themselves throughout the bulk of the song. (Love the tabla sound integrated in there, as well!) As a matter of fact, one might conclude that the percussives are the real lead track here with the synths playing second fiddle--though the song would be far from as effective without them and their steadfast swirling and spiraling. The addition of 80s sounding Western drum machine percussion sounds is well-integrated by this point. A key change at 17:38! What an unexpected surprise! And then back at 19:15. Back up again at 20:55. And another higher shift at 22:30. Bursts of Star Warsian space-spitting noises join in the soundscape during this last four minutes. A final downward key shift at 24:50 finds the music joined by Mellotron choir voices. Nice. (9/10)

2. "Around the Second Moon" (22:45) opens with some very interesting slowly sliding note "arpeggi" beneath which some sequential percussion/bass lines try to establish themselves. As the treble sounds thin and disappear, the "bubbling," "squirting" sequencer lines become more interesting, hypnotic, captivating, and then foundational, even melody holders. In the fourth minute, they are the only music placeholders before some synth washes sneak in from behind. The chord choices of the synths add so much to enhance the sequencing. It's not until the middle of the seventh minute that the first percussive sound arrives and begins to elbow its way into the mix. By now the bass and synth lines have wormed their way into your subconscious in a kind of Edgar Alan Poe way while syncopated, intermittent percussives make it sound like Madeline Usher trying to break out of her casket in the basement. This is SO COOOL!!! New upper octave sequence sneaks in during the twelfth minute before a wave of a cymbol crash signals the achievement of full sound. Simply brilliant! So cool that the free, or improvisational instrument is a kind of large, kodo-like drum--until the seventeenth minute when percussives fade out. By the beginning of the eighteenth minute, all of the original instrumental sounds and sequences have pretty much faded into the distant background save for the synth washes--which now seem augmented by Mellotron choir voices. Staticky-rainstick-fly noises pan quickly across the soundscape while all three of the dominant sequential tracks slowly reassert themselves, if still in the background. A little PETER GABRIEL Passion: Music for the Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack can be felt at the end. (10/10)

3. "Elevation" (20:36) very steady, even, and subtly uneventful over the first half, the second half sparks to life but then drags on without enough development, resolution, or dénouement. (8/10)

Were I more familiar with Klaus Schulze's work of the second half of the 1970s I might find more to compare and critique, but, as is, I can only find praise. The clarity and fullness of modern sound is so pleasant and fulfilling to the ear and soul than the often thin and scratchy stuff of recordings from the 70s that, as with the Master's 2007 release, Kontinuum, I am filled with only praise and joy.

Five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music and one of the 21st Century's shining examples of stellar Berlin School revitalization.