LABYRINTH

Guenter Schickert´s Labyrinth, 2018, released over a bit more than three decades since his last solo album Kinder In Der Wildnis, if we could consider this his last output, due to its re-release in 1983.

So kind of a random and small discography plus a couple of releases with GAM ( found in these archive´s under the Krautrock listings) & a CD with Jochen Arbeit & Schneider TM entitled ASS (2016), are kind of his established trademark.

Anyway this 2018 album has been going on and off my reproduction list for some months. In some way my high expectations for having sonic news from Schickert, who I followed until his silence, have settled down to a more reasonable level which helps, more so, if writing a public review.

Labyrinth´s a nine track record which covers some different experimental styles, percussive ideas and a couple of lyric based proposals (the ones sung are surprisingly among the best tracks). Some work better than others and more than once the songwriting is actually poor, lazy or dated.

It´s super healthy to have a non-mainstream attitude, it gives you great artistic freedom but as uncle Ben commented: With great power comes great responsibility. And when you have to hand out some bucks, well, at least you expect an even deal.

Labyrinth is good news because it marks Schickert´s comeback (he is releasing a new album this month) but as for the music it is irregular. Some superb highlights but not enough. Sometimes its experimental approach masks lack of musical solutions and more than four tracks are truly expendable. To cut it short an uneven deal.

With reasonable doubts ***3 minus PA´s stars, because even if the songwriting is poor or flawed it is not a rip-off or a copycat (not even of himself), but aside from that, it´s still minus!

I hope things get better, I really do!