MOSAIQUE

Robert Schroeder could be thought as an apprentice of KLAUS SCHULZE, whose electronic music label Innovative Communication released most of his albums from the debut Harmonic Ascendant (1979) to Pegasus (1989). Since the latter, Schroeder has made only three albums in this millenium; in the 80's he released one album each year except in 1986. This third album, produced and mixed by Schulze, consists of four tracks and features four guest musicians (on guitar, bass and drums).

'Mosaique' (12:03) proceeds gradually in a Schulzean way but repeats angular and sharp synth sounds I'm not fond of. Somehow I'm thinking of Jarre's album Zoolook (1984). Charly Büchel's electric guitar part is angrily distorted, like the one at the end of Pink Floyd's 'Keep Talking'. 'Utopia' begins with repeated synth patterns and the same pig-sounding guitar, but the 6-minute piece turns out to be quite progressive.

The shortest piece 'Aix-la-Chapelle' (4:25) features two drummers giving the music a feeling of a military march. A fairly nice, unexpected "surprise track", although the repeated synth melody remains rather boring. This far I'm personally not very impressed by the album. The preceding ratings without reviews suggest it to be better than the two earlier albums. Well, perhaps this one has more progressive rock elements attached to electronic music. The final track 'Computervoice' (12:33) is a good example of this fusion and for all its sonic dynamics it's the obvious highlight. In its latter half, the synths have airiness and moody melodicism, which is not much the case on other tracks of much colder nature. This is an excellent track but since I'm not so keen on the first two pieces featuring that pig-guitar, I have to stick to three stars.