STEVE HAUSCHILDT

1. "Horizon Of Appearances" (6:33) gorgeously rich John Serrie-like textured waves with off-world percussion and strings serving as animals or twinklings. Gourmet food for an active imagination like mine. Blade Runner 2049 could've used music like this. (10/10)

2. "Same River Twice" (5:59) opens with a bank of synthesized female voices that are soon joined by sequenced electronic percussives, a variety of arpeggiated keyboard lines, and a loose, almost syncopated bass line. The weave is rich and symphonic; more than minimalist though it has some of those sensibilities, too. Toward the end of the third minute the sequencer programs begin to feel very TANGERINE DREAM-like. (8.75/10)

3. "A False Seeming" (3:19) every ten seconds or so a lush synth chord comes rushing forward like a concussive wave from distant beginnings, washing right over/through the listener. It's an amazing half-comforting, half- exfoliating experience. Brilliant! (9.25/10)

4. "Ketracel" (4:34) straight out of the TD/KLAUS SCHULZE world of early video game soundtracks, the VANGELIS-like buzzing-synth in the lead position calms and reassures--until the two-minute mark when synth/computer pops and glitches take over the sound scape and all other seem unnatural to the musical world yet possible to a computer generated Neo-Jurassic world. Awesome! (9/10)

5. "Time We Have" (5:50) a near-exact replica if a chordal sequence and sound palette of MARK ISHAM from his 1982-5 period (Vapor Drawings and soundtracks to the spacious films, Mrs. Soffel, Country, and Never Cry Wolf). Beautiful! (9.5/10)

6. "Strands" (5:17) beautiful and melodic in a happy, almost New Age way. The John Serrie School of Space Electronica. I'm in heaven! (9.5/10)

7. "Transience Of Earthly Joys" (6:43) heavily treated piano and Mellotron voices yield a very familiar HAROLD BUDD/BRIAN ENO-like soundscape. (8.5/10)

8. "Die In Fascination" (4:21) waves of particles washing through the ocean of space, this is very VANGELIS/ROACH/RICH-like. A little too boring. (8.25/10)

Total Time 42:36

A-/five stars; a masterpiece of modern Progressive Electronic music and perhaps even a masterpiece of progressive rock music in general. Definitely an album that I'd highly recommend for anyone open to the spacey potentialities of modern computer synthesizer music.

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!

1. "Cloudloss" (3:45) a strangely satisfying excursion into controlled chaos as layered beauty of ambient synth washes are paired up with a cacophony discordant and, at times, disturbing computer noise "music." Somehow it works. (9/10)

2. "Subtractive Skies" (6:46) hypnotic ambient techno weave of layers of synths and computer percussives, all with a steady and driving presence of a pulsing bass line--at least until the final two minutes when bass cuts out as synth flock seems to fly slowly and beautifully fly away like a thick flock of birds all flying in perfectly synchrony. (14/15)

3. "A Planet Left Behind" (3:36) pitch-warped and warbled keyboard play is soon joined and suppressed by deep bass and slow rise of muted synth washes, thus creating space for a delicate dance of synth strings. Beautifully "orchestrated." (9.5/10)

4. "Attractor B" (5:29) opens with slow pensive electric piano chords, by the third minute has become dominated by computer techno noise music. (9/10)

5. "The Nature Remaining" (2:34) echoing electric piano play over distant etheric synth washes. (4.25/5)

6. "Nonlin" (5:15) techno track and RADIOHEAD-like synth chord with busy and heavily treated bass synth performing the lead work. Interesting for the pops and glitches. (8.5/10)

7. "Reverse Culture Music" (6:09) opens sounding like a slow Gamelan song performed by Western orchestral strings under the guidance of Phillip Glass. By the second minute it has morphed into a more Western hypno-trance piece with Steve Reich and Pat Metheny's guidance. By the third minute it's feeling more like a SEQUENTIA LEGENDA song. Cool and sly flow of transformative shape-shifting. The cello use is genius! (9.5/10)

8. "The Spring In Chartreuse" (3:26) this is no spring from my experience! Maybe the opening of discordant backward notes is supposed to represent the chaos of late Winter weather, or perhaps the title is merely an afterthought, but the weave of reverse and forward arpeggi is weird and a bit unsettling. Still, nobody else that I know of is doing taking music in this direction. (8.5/10)

9. "American Spiral" (5:35) slow arpeggio of VANGELIS-like space synth notes opens this one--notes covering the entire breadth of the keyboard. At the one minute mark a blob of computer noise music in a kind of raw Kanye West "Faster, stronger" pattern enters while the space notes continue to arpeggiate slowly behind. The noise music gets quite gnarly, like the movement and noise of a creature from Ghostbusters. Weird, ending with a slow exit/escape of the alien usurper. (8.5/10)

Total time 42:35

4.5 stars. I vouch for this album as a masterpiece of progressive electronic music though it only qualifies as a near-masterpiece of progressive rock.

By not even glancing at it, nor becoming over indulgent, neither falling prey of his own previous work´s excellence as prog legends usually do automatically. Need names? Not the time nor the place.

A fresh new perspective of his own self acquired possibilities, without overworking the same roads , but having the fun and eagerness to feel free to sow new ones, I mean, this is an artist at work, nor a clown, neither your harlequin, if you are in come on and join the party, if not , well you have the right to do so . He is not here to repeat himself for the pleasure of your enjoyment, he obviously is not here for your money, artistry certainly has a price, usually paid by the artist himself.

No time to lose in ephemeral ratings or reviews, people will still praise whathever they want to, but to the ones who can even raise a pen to write 53 words.. and still have the ability to be overwhelmed by an original, way ahead of its time, yet as humanly close as independent Progressive Electronic music could turn out to be, this is another Steve Hauschildt´s real deal work.

If you need more written info to lose yourself in written words, well maybe someone else would write all the WORDS you need, but if you are in for the music , well my friend, you are in for a perfecly threaded embroidery of the few & complex simplifications of the the still unturned stones (no famous or infamous plagiiarists allowed repetitions), which makes contemporary Electronic music still such a thrill and silently the future of any contemporary prog band (any genre, time will tell (lol), time will tell).

In Prog world´s layman´s terms and in comparison (underlined) like the distance between , ( both masterworks), Close to the Edge & Relayer, also like the gap between Rubycon & Ricochet, genre wise speaking (also of course both masterworks) , even though , I do still prefer the first references due to their own music language idiosyncrasies and opposite resemblances , of course in Steve Hauschildt´s contemporary electronic music idiom & point of view, which of course is just a manner of explaining and has nothing to do with Yes.

***** "Another 5 star gem" . ENJOY , enjoy & enjoy...............................

PS: If, as told, you need more to read, well read more in his Bandcamp site, but if you have the urge to listen to hyper well written and evenly performed contemporarty PROG Electronic music, don´t miss.

Each of the nine tracks has its own personality, there is no musical nor conceptual tie among them, which enriches the listening experience with sonic diversity.

Music composition wise it relies on interesting and simplified structures combined with aleatory electronic noise experimentation. There are no pulse driven dynamics, Krautrock "Rock" nor New Age moods or strict Ambient music solutions, so let me call them Soundscapes/Dronescapes.

Yet there is still something naive about his composing intentions therefore his musical structures, but the same it helps to keep them away from false pretentions. If anything this release is honest to the bone.

**2 PA´s stars.

This album had the luck to get two very well written and explanatory reviews before mine in these Prog archives which kind of helps to set its whats & whereabouts and reason of existence, which usually I really not account for my music appreciation nor rating, but agree with both reviewers on the fact that even if it is not flawless what is valuable is truly worth listening (I myself will keep it due to the same).

***3.5

P.S. Even if it all seems pretentiously conceptual, the songwriting is independent of its showcase thus quiet unpretentious and up front.

Having heard the Steve Hauschildt releases shown in these Prog. archives, until now, chronologically, ( less his 2018 Dissolvi which I heard first ), the maturity acquired in his music composition skills has grown exponentially. What once was a whole composition is now a section or detail of one, without losing his knack for simplification nor sacrificing melodic beauty, his idiom now displays a wider range of creative structures as it is richer, meticulously well crafted (as it usually is) and far more personal and emotional due to its detachment of foreign influences.

A very good example of how you do not have to rip-off TD´s, Schulze´s or Eno´s (nor Steve Reich´s by the way) musical language or pamper yourself behind conceptual explanations to update and continue the Berlin School´s teachings.

An 8 track release where all eight compositions offer up front refreshing, diverse, enticing and above all a personal approach to the 21st century´s electronic music evolution thus to the Progressive Electronic sub-genre as well.

****4.5 PA´s stars.

Exciting in diversity, rich in creativity, full of surprising details and overflowing with confidence this 14 tracks release delivers on each of its tracks a unique, emotional and intelligent contemporary Progressive Electronic trip without no kind of attachments to past glories but its possible future ones.

Sometimes the good things in life are so close that one ends up looking for them on the other side of the planet.

****4.5 PA´s stars. Do not miss.

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!

In this release, music wise, Steve Hauschildt is more into the catchy and friendly electronic riffs and compositions, although his experimental approach is still there it just acts as a secondary character. Of course there is nothing wrong with accesible music (or any kind of music by the way), if it touches you it is for you if it does not well it is not.

Sequitur has some real close encounters with the 80s Synth-Wave styling (drum boxes/deep bass included) in tune with the New Romantics kind of melancholic/tragic songwriting in some of its tracks, others have brushes with what TD, Klaus Schulze and J.M. Jarre or even Kraftwerk were sounding like in those same years.

Like a late retribution to other of his personal influences and likings yet even among these close calls one can still recognize what he also brings to the table.

Probably one of his more mainstream albums and hopefully a nice way to interest a broader audience into his otherwise more "complex" works.

***3 PA stars.