DISSOLVI

A new kind of frontier.

Frankly I really don´t want to talk about this guy´s dos and don'ts or his bio or whatever you can easily find in this site´s Progressive Electronic files. I had the luck of encountering Steve Hauschildt´s Dissolvi (2018) before any of his previous works. I liked the cover art and bought it just to find out that the DADAistic visual composition was a cover up for a very unDADAistic electronic music project, and boy! It was an unexpected surprise.

Dissolvi is an 8 track no cheap thrills, highly refined and perfectly threaded and even better composed non-classical contemporary electronic music Masterpiece.

A new kind of groove in these P.A.´s P.E. fields (of course he is not the first but this is just too good to go unnoticed) and by contemporary I mean up close encounters with ELECTRONICA to put it simply and scare away the purists.

Steve Hauschildt´s Dissolvi consists of solid/ethereal songs (some even with lyrics & vocals) no experimental bs, no unrequired Artsy pretentions but Artistic solutions to intelligent and emotional electronic music songwriting.

But let me insist this is a new kind of electronic playground and even better yet an original approach to P.E. in a unique and refined musical language, without no real connection to the electronic school´s of yore as his previous works are, which I later found out.

***** ENJOY!

I'm backtracking: I was blown away by Steve's fresh approach to electronic music with his 2019 album Nonlin. I had to give Dissolvi some space before I could respectfully dive into it for its own effects--without the aura of Nonlin tainting my judgments.

My first reaction is that I'm listening to a modernized version of 1980s Windham Hill artist Mark Isham's solo work (before he started touring with David Sylvian and David Torn)--or what Isham might have attempted had he first appeared in the 21st Century. I'm also hearing the influences of Jean-Michel Jarre, Kitaro, and Tangerine Dream as well as the computer pop and glitch experimentalists of the late 1990s and early 2000s. But, in the end, this is really fresh music--really great, engrossing, satisfying listening music.

Favorite songs: the modern computer jazz overdub to a Vangelis tune in 5. "Arold" (5:32) (9.25/10); the clicky, upbeat, 1. "M Path" (4:49) (9/10); the Isham-eque, 4. "Alienself" (7:00) (13.75/15); the dreamy 3. "Saccade" (4:09) (9/10); the beautiful spacey soundscapes over muted trip hop of 7. "Lyngr" (4:32) (8.75/10), and; the title song, which kind of synthesizes all of the above (6:26) (8.5/10).

B/four stars; a very nice, refreshing synthesis of new and old electronica--one that, I hope, points the way to future possibilities for Prog Electronic artists.

Special Warning to all Prog Lovers: There is dance music here!