“That's a great DVD/CD combo which includes wonderful musical pearls of a music which transcends the usual Berlin School style”
DVD 95:00
1 Intro 1:18
2 Storm Chaser 12:20
3 Sunset Café 16:58
4 Sunrise 12:38
5 Madrigal 5:47
6 Old Kids On The Stick 7:44
7 Babylon Road 14:27
8 Skinner's Run 12:19
9 Source Of Life 9:42
CD 71:25
1 Warm Up (Studio 2009) 6:49
2 Storm Chaser (Live 2010) 15:43
3 Sunset Cafe (Live 2010) 11:22
4 Tranzz08 (Live 2009) 9:16
5 The Gates of Kairuan (Live 2009) 9:24
6 Far from India 2009 (Live 2009) 11:04
7 Memories of Hampshire (Live 2009) 7:42
(CD/DVD 176:25) (V.F.)
(Tribal New Berlin School)
This Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder's CD/DVD combo is cut in luxury. A nice looking digipack with a 16 pages' booklet including pictures of the trio and their accomplices for the Repelen sessions; Raughi Ebert and Thomas Kagermann. A nice combo of which the DVD presents a concert where the quintet interprets entirely their last opus, Repelen 3, as well as a track from Live @ Dorfkirche Repelen 2, Source of Life. The CD includes 5 new tracks, among which 4 are played in concert in the chapel of Repelen on January 18th, 2009 and one was recorded in Detlef Keller's studios in October 2009, as well as 2 tracks that we can see on the DVD: Storm Chaser and Sunset Cafe. IN REPELEN is a nice box-set with a good show that will make fans of Broekhuis, Keller and Schönwälder, and of their Repelen project, very happy.
Recorded on February 7th, 2010, the DVD presents a very intimate concert of the band, among which 5 members are placed in the small chapel’ choir of this church which welcomes the band since 2006. Broekhuis, Keller and Schönwälder is well nested on the top of steps of the church choir while guitarist Raughi Ebert and violinist Thomas Kagermann are in front stage. A sober positioning that put synths higher, wrapping with their strata and of their imposing presence all the atmospheric magic which is freeing of this warm concert. The result gives a good and serene show where we see the Berlin quintet interpreted entirely the whole of Repelen 3 with all the array of instruments that the Manikin house has developed over the years and so giving their futuristic looks and tones so charming which are in the core of BKS's musicality and sound richness. The lighting is sober and well sieved while shots of digital cameras, which are perched around musicians, give us clear images with nice raids onto musicians, revealing so quite their dexterities and the complexity of these instruments that they handle with such a disarming ease. The show begins with Storm Chaser where Eva Kagermann is doing a lascivious and ethereal dance with movements which espouse those slow and progressive rhythms of Storm Chaser and Babylon Road. The music of Repelen 3 is aptly returned and the performance on Old Kids on the Stick is quite unique with this strange futuristic cellos which serve as synth and sequencers, toyed with enjoyment and complicity by the German trio which kicks down the church with the solid Skinner's Run. Madrigal is another highlight with the home chorale of Repelen. We notice that the violin moves out of tone. Mario Schönwälder explains that sound difficulties explain this strange phenomenon of acoustics which is corrected with the version of Kagermann during the rehearsal, respecting so the principle of live sound and performance. Source of Life respects the solemnity of the concert with a soft and dreamlike music which is a very beautiful ode to daydream.
If the DVD is the cornerstone of this IN REPELEN box-set, the CD is not only there to make the box bigger. It's a nice CD which offers nearly 45 minutes of new EM, showing us that the quintet has still some nice things from the Repelen sessions to make us listen. The only track to be recorded in studio, Warm-up is a strange Berber ode where laments of violin and of a quixotic cello caress notes of a guitar flirting with a fanciful harp. Tranzz08 offers more rhythm with an oscillating sequential movement which waves among breaths of flutes and percussions drumming a tribal pace. A track which lurches between a cosmic and ethnic rock with Thomas Kagermann's psychedelic whispers and which evolves on wrapping mellotron pads. The Gates of Kairuan is in the purest Berlin School tradition with a sequencer line taking the shape of a rosary of crystal clears chords which sparkle like the majestic Klaus Schulze's Crystal Lake from the Mirage album. This limpid and hypnotic sequencer movement progresses among an array of veils, violin layers and solos, from guitar and synth, which swirl around a fine line of bass and additional sequences clicking like snips of scissors among little more sober percussions. It's a splendid Berlin School which finds all of his nobility around great synth solos. That's some great BKS we have here! With Far from India 2009 and Memories of Hampshire, we dive into a more rock and ethnic approach of Broekhuis, Keller and Schönwälder. Strata of synth which undulate with a metallic essence are opening Far from India 2009's first measures. The fluty mellotron breezes are more much nervous than percussions which try to find themselves in an intro that we feel explosive. Tabla percussions, enchanting flutes, breezes of synths with reverberating waves and guitar/sitar are structuring a nervous intro which explodes around 3 minutes later with percussions which rock and roll on good layers of an ethereal synth, plunging Far from India 2009 into a powerful ethnic rock. That's a heavy and stormy movement which calms down towards the end where the Berber singings are measuring to big synth solos, before that Far from India 2009 dips back into its wild rhythm. It's another good track, quite like Memories of Hampshire which, after an indecisive intro, progresses on a nervous rhythmic pattern with guitar riffs and solos scattering over an undisciplined structure.
With its 16 tracks on 1 DVD and 1 CD, IN REPELEN is a great gift of music for fans of Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder. Especially for those who appreciate the Repelen era where the trio abandons a little its fragrances of Berlin School to create a skillful ethnic, progressive and electronic fusion. I must say that's a great DVD and a very good CD which includes wonderful musical pearls of a music which transcends the usual Berlin School style.
Sylvain Lupari (December 11th, 2010) ****½*
Disponible au Manikin Music Bandcamp