“Those who believe that EM is lacking of life, of energy should throw an ear and listen to this Heisenberg 1”
1 Part 1 24:19 2 Part 2 23:08 3 Part 3 18:24 4 Part 4 13:52 Alien Nature Music (DDL 79:45) (Driven Sequencer-Based E-Rock)
In my review of the Return to the Land of Dreams album I pointed out to you that Alien Nature puts a part of his discography on his Bandcamp download platform. One finds discoveries there. Albums which have gone under the radars. Like this HEISENBERG 1 that Wolfgang Barkowski released at the same time as Who Goes There?, either on December 2012. If this last album went out on the German label SynGate, HEISENBERG 1 was a self-made production offered in CD-r and without artworks, nor explanatory memorandums. It's the same way that he proposes on Bandcamp where the information is always non-existent. Due to the name of the album, one knows that there will be another volume, which is the case actually, and one guesses that the music makes a reference to the life, to the work of Werner Heisenberg, a German physicist who is one of the founders of the quantum mechanics. And according to the music, Heisenberg didn't have it so easy …
Part 1 starts with a thick layer of oscillations which roll with an evasive harmonious approach. It's an introduction of electronic nebulosity on which get grafted sound effects, chirpings of machine and cosmic breezes which seem to hum with human voices. Percussions to tones of metal which were cloned with organic matters set up a strange structure of rhythm, pushing Part 1 towards the roots of a vintage psychedelic cosmic rock. Jerky chords merge with these harmonies which are not too much far from the 60's fuzz-wah-wah, giving an improbable futuristic dimension to this introduction which sounds like outside of any eras. It's lively and it's good! The big fat and very juicy chords seem alone after the mark of 10 minutes, breathing these amphibian structures of Jean-Michel Jarre in his En Attendant Cousteau. Slightly too long, but not deprived of interest, Part 1 binds to this identity before pouring a slight floating of serenity in Part 2. Its first 4 minutes are coated of celestial voices. A bass pulsation brings out the bludgeon towards 4:30 minutes, awakening percussions which plough on a structure of pure electronic rock a rhythmic pattern which is more in an evolutive mode here. We are entitled to a small moment of electronic weirdness around the 14th minute, giving thus a second breath in a good structure of electronic rock bare of synth solos but not of harmonies, which seem weaved in a parallel universe to HEISENBERG 1. The synth solos show personality with all their attributes as acrobatic than harmonious in Part 3, a title more in mode Dance Music which also bursts after almost 5 minutes of ambiospherical authority. If there is an observation to make on this album, it's the constancy of its rhythms which develop a fury renewed in every stage of the album. Part 4 proposes the shortest ambiospherical introduction in HEISENBERG 1 before bringing out a rhythm which is situated between Dance Music and an E-rock more in the Neo Berlin School genre. A metallic glazing covers the rhythmic surface which mixes a good dose of boldness with these chords of dance and these sequences of rock below a concert of cymbals and a good flock of singing exercises from a choir without breath. Wolfgang Barkowski plays more often here with the permutation of his rhythms which always remain very lively, even under another shape, after brief interludes of sound strangeness which abound in puddles of ambiences as much exotic that the electronic universe can shape.
Alien Nature doesn't go in for subtleties in HEISENBERG 1! The sound is as hard as the phases of rhythms which never feel sorry for our feet. There is a good mixture of Krautrock, the of Düsseldorf School and of old Berlin School, in particular at the level of the rather Schulze atmospheres of ether by moments, in these 4 long structures which make live an album not really so unexpected as this, considering the boldness, always very easy to tame by the way, of Wolfgang Barkowski. Those who believe that EM is lacking life, energy should throw an ear and listen to this album!
Sylvain Lupari (February 8th, 2018) ***¾**
Available on Alien Nature Bandcamp