ANDREAS MEYER: Sinnenlust (2016)

“Sinnenlust is among those albums which mix perfectly the sounds of the Berlin School style of the old days and the ones of today's”

1 Garten der Lust 9:17 2 Nackt durch die Nacht 11:29 3 Einander Beruhren 7:40 4 Feuer der Liebe 7:34 5 Sinnenlust 13:01 6 Kontakt 9:43

Nord Music

(DDL 58:47) (V.F.) (Berlin School)

Andreas Meyer is certainly one of the most beautiful discoveries among the gigantic bank of EM offered on Bandcamp. His music, always very romantic, is built on a delicious union between ambiences and rhythms in a sound aestheticism rich in electronic effects and in colors of tones. SINNELUST, for sensory pleasures is a small bomb of sound pleasures where the German synthesist perfumes his music of esotericism and cosmic essences. We are here in the lair of the cosmic rhythms of the 70's, but with a touch of contemporaneousness in the decoration.

Garten der Lust starts this last sonic odyssey with an abundance to colors and tones which mix the mysticism and the astral sensualism. Layers of very ethereal voices float among these lines which refine their tones with orchestral caresses. Some electronic effects decorate this garden of lechery with cracklings and songs of stellar stars while layers with lower tones lull the ambiences which are nibbled by percussions, by sighs of cymbals and by a line of sequences which jumps on the spot such as a static rodeo. What seduces is this rich pallet of electronic effects and these eternal caresses of the stellar violins that we can easily mistake with seraphic voices. Little by little, Garten der Lust weighs down its dimension with more effects of bass and percussions of which the illegitimate pulsations get lost in the stitches of a movement of stroboscopic sequences and in the dense musicality of those multiple synth lines, tracing a tempo which derive in the gardens of lust. We still don't know it, but we have just entered the bewitching territories of SINNELUST! Smothered pulsations and cosmic stars which crumble, the introduction all in ambiences of Nackt durch die Nacht goes adrift towards a dance of hundred lost steps which seek for a kind of cohesion beneath some splendid piercing songs of a synth. The percussions resound like shocks of dodgems while the sequencing pattern emerges with spasmodic lines. This fusion of sequences and percussions eventually weaved a lively and dislocated electronic rhythm which embraces a short ambiospherical phase before biting again our eardrums for another section of jerky cosmic break-dance. And always... these songs of spectres of a very acuteness synth. It's rather difficult to talk about the music of Andreas Meyer without making of link with Klaus Schulze, and Einander Beruhren is there to make a little reminder. The introduction and the primary phase of rhythm lights our memories of Schulze and his Body Love era. The structure becomes more contemporary with a rhythm as fluid as the flow of its jerks which pound beneath the lethal caresses of a synth and its magical solos. Let's say that it's a nice extension of Nackt durch die Nacht but in a rhythmic phase which goes from lento to semi-swift still under a delicious cosmic atmosphere. Feuer der Liebe proposes a lively and constant rhythm with bass sequences from which the quick oscillations shake another line of sequences and spasmodic electronic percussions intimidated by the steamroller of the main oscillating line. The movement offers nuances, and in the tones and in the speed, before dying in a finale which reveals a small flaw at the level of fade-out and of the sonic bridge which ties the track with the title-track. Well, this is a little thing that annoys me! Speaking about title-track, Sinnenlust proposes a movement of oscillating loops which is more moderate than in the fiery Feuer der Liebe. The rhythm is thus more ambient under a rich sound texture where crawl threatening hummings with a delicate stroboscopic effect arisen from percussions and sequences of which the crystals of prism are tinkling in a superb coat of ethereal mist. It's very romantic and especially very inspiring. Kontakt ends the album with a very Jean-Michel Jarre approach, so much for the entailing rhythm than the harmonious solos and the cosmic effects.

What a contrast with Irrgarten 2! Far from the minimalist structures which eventually bewitch due to deferring of the time, SINNELUST brings the listener through many structures of electronic rhythms built on a skillful meshing of sequences which pound in divergent tones and of electronic percussions charmingly beaten with a well-intentioned clumsiness. The ambiences are nested in a sonic envelope of the most esthetic where all the secrets of the vintage years are revamped with a touch of modernity, in accordance with these rhythms which explain why this attachment that some thousands of aficionados have for the EM of the Berlin School style. WoW! Quite impressive this Andreas Meyer!

Sylvain Lupari (August 26th, 2016) ****½*

SynthSequences.com

Available at Nord Bandcamp