THE MAN-MACHINE [AKA: DIE MENSCH-MASCHINE]

I must say I'm not a fan of electronic music and I decided on a whim to give this album a shot and broaden my horizons and I really quite enjoyed it, I actually found it quite similar to a lot of post-rock I enjoy which just goes to show how influential KRAFTWERK are.

The music is quite sparse and usually involves a looping drum beat with a phasing bass arpeggio with various different synth melodies and sound effects interspersed throughout, and of course the trademark vocoded 'robot' vocals. The music is very washy yet rhythmic and it is very successful in conveying the image it was aiming for - a technologically futuristic scene in space and it is a very beautiful image indeed. The man-machine also for me invokes a sense of nostalgia for early videogame music (even though it predated most of it) due to the type of synths that are used, there are a lot of rich saw wave sounds and a lot of great analog sharp sounds.

Spacelab is an early highlight on the album, it is one of the spaciest songs on the album and contains some of my favourite synth sounds, there is also greta melody here which particularly surprised me (I never really expected it from electronic music). Neon Lights is my definite favourite on the album though, clocking in at nearly 9 minutes with singing for the first 2 and then we ascend to the heavens to watch the stars for the remaining 7 - I enjoy every minute of it, a fantastic progressive electronic song.

I'm continually surprised at myself over how much I like this album, I have never been a fan of electronic music in fact I used to actively bad mouth it but I let my prejudices go, got this album and was pleasantly surprised. Recommended to anyone into spacey electronic music.

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