BLUE DREAM

Frenchman Laurent Schieber has been a life-long fan of electronic music--especially the legendary synthesizer sequencing of the fictitious "Berlin School of Electronic Music" (there is not nor was there ever an actual school of electronic music in Berlin churning out the great artists or albums of the 1970s) and especially of the recently deceased Klaus Schulze. It seems that Laurent had been experimenting with his own imitations and compositions for years but is only now, in the last few years, publishing recordings of his compositions for public consumption--and I, for one, am so glad that he is. Blue Dream consists of three long songs: the 33-minute 10-part suite, "Fly Over Me" (10/10), the 22-minute "The Approach" (8/10) with its driving drum and synthesizer rhythm tracks and shifting synth washes beneath and within, and the 15-minute "bonus" song, "Vibrations" (9/10). All songs are very well mixed and produced (would that the Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze albums of the 1970s had this kind of sound quality) with my favorite being the opener--which is clearly the centerpiece of the album, with the bonus song, "Vibrations," next. While none of the compositions here reveal anything new or innovative in the world of electronic sound technology, the perfect imitation of the masters of the 1970s is a true homage and, I believe, fully Laurent's top intention.

The Berlin School of electronic music founders Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Conrad Schnitzler et al, as such, did not arrive instantly to the construction of their own musical language , as more than one may wrongly assume, but after a personal drive which took each and everyone of them to do so. What better eaxample than the distance between TD´s Electronic Meditation (1970) and their 1974 Phaedra where their quest found its treasure (and a gold mine for pirates) and from there they created their masterpieces Rubycon and Ricochet (both 1975).

So the origin of the famous Berlin School of electronic music came the same influenced by past done electronic music experimentations which go way back to the Russian musician and inventor Leon Theremin who invented the theremin in 1920 which is the first electronic music instrument.

Therefore assuming that, for example, Phaedra is that school is totally wrong. TD´s musical quest led them to that personal composer´s language in that work and its astounding result as it happened differently with Schnitzler´s Ballet Statique (1978) whose same date of works, even as founder and also as an example, led him to a very different as unique musical language.

So Sequentia Legenda´s Blue Dream (2014), without taking into account their verbal or written marketing expressions or verbal artistic intentions, is an extension of Phaedra or Schulze´s Timewind not the Berlin School as such, which as mentioned started with actual electronic music experiments, but obviously market wise it will turn out to be quiet unpopular to sell in those terms.

Therefore if you feel the kind of hunger for music which resembles or recreates the 1974-1980s TD´s or Schulze´s same dates own self acquired musical idiom, Blue Dream will fit in those parameters almost to perfection. If you are looking for a self acquired modern extension of the Berlin School of electronic musical language look somewhere else because, believe it or not, it exists and it does not sound as Rubycon or Timewind, it has evoluted a lot since Electronic Meditation or K. Schulze.´s Irrlicht (1972) .

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