ELEKTRONISCHE MYTHEN

Looking like the baddie from 'The Blair Witch Project' on the sleeve, Jürgen Karg gives us an inhospitable electronic experiment from '77. For this year it actually sounds quite dated belonging more to the 'Zeit' and 'Irrlicht' 1972 period from Berlin.

Supposedly he worked on this album for 5 years before it went to press! You'd be hard pushed to understand why. At low level listening it sounds abstract, random and almost disengaging. On closer inspection, with a set of headphones on, it actually sounds pretty good, where you can hear that the guy's definitely had a masterplan of sorts rolled up his sleeves all along.

There's very little in the way of tunes. Instead, an ambient electronic creepy atmosphere is conjured up, reminding me at many points of Karlheinz Stockhausen's works.

Where did Karg appear from? Where did he go? Information regarding this dubious character is scant to say the least. There is in fact quite a lot of this type of 70's electronica about if you dig deep enough in the form of 'Nino Nardini', 'Nik Raicevic' and 'Jean Claude Eloy' to name but a few.

At the end of the day, 'Elektronische Mythen' is a good solid dose of vocal and instrument free electronic weirdness which may hold appeal to early Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schülze fans, before they went keyboard crazy using their new fangled arpeggiator technology.

Electronics which are quiet far from prog as such!

In the true spirit of electronic music experimentation (which started around 1933-1945, not with TD, as some reviewers suggest), Jurgen Karg wrote "Elektronische Mythenelectronic" in 1977, which as he himself comments, took him 5 years to finally finish it. Many factors can explain the long time it took him to conclude this work , but it is quiet evident that the results are 2, twenty minutes long each (+-), structured, perfectly detailed and arranged, noise-electronic, small symphonies.

The use of "central european" canons in its songwriting is more than obvious, but what makes these works tick, is the transformation of those same canons, into the purely electronic/noise music environment, without bringing any kind of useless baggage or desire to resemble acoustic symphonic instruments but nevertheless paying full attention to its inherent "electronic music " cadence, melody, counterpointing and depth. So he plays along those canons but stepping aside from fads or ripping off someone else´s music and constructs 2 compulsively detailed "free forms" that are also obsessively structured in their music composition.

Modern electronic classical music, which only real "flaw", is having being written for those same type of audiophiles. The fact that is included in a Prog/Music page, does not change that fact a bit. Therefore quiet exclusive for such a vast musical universe, but a gem is still a gem anywhere!

****4.5 " small masterpiece, which unfortunately, is not for every prog audiophile" PA stars.

Magnificent electronic fresh shower that can be called as "non-melodious Hydrus", as if we would enjoy cool clear flavoury Japanese sake.

The A Side "Die Versunkende Stadt - Atlantis" sounds more powerful and violative one than "Vollmond - Selene" upon another side. A ghostly horrible Fantasia beneath his inner mind I imagine. So tense, as if a thin thread in his mind would likely to get broken easily. Unstable but grabs the ground apparently. His powerful attitude and eventually such an earache / headache was constructed purely with his fragile brainstorm indeed. Nothing flamboyant nor formal but pure soundscape by his soul, phantastik.

On the contrary, for me one of the most important progressive electronic ambience this obscurity titled "Vollmond - Selene" is. Obviously this brilliant kaleidoscope sounds like sea waves breaking upon the shore and retreating, sometimes dazzling tone bullets launched here and there. Regardless of some instabilities, no suspicion he would throw so many beautiful electricities which get unified and merged together quite precisely and rigidly. Yes, sounds like we would get a dreamy illuminated illusion via his warm, hearty, but chilling sound eccentric inorganic suite.

Very controversial that each of us could understand or realize what he wanted to do via this mysterious stuff. One might feel he should be a depressor, or another he be a mischievous and childish. Yeah dunno which is correct, and whether both are true or not. But hey, that's all right anyhow. We should make sure that he would have created what he'd meant to do through his inner (and outer?) space, and created such a mysteriously precious electronic suite. No suspicion this album be a gem, and makes sense why nobody knows such a gem.

Get a fruitful atmosphere, and let yourself squeeze into another dimensional dream.