“The Breakfast Event is a long sonic road which presents the many facets of Detlef Keller”
1 Eleven Years Later 45:52 Manikin | MRCD 8006
(CD 45:52) (V.F.) (Minimalist Berlin School)
Detlef Keller is among one of the best-kept secrets of the Berlin School scene. Faithful accomplice of Mario Schonwalder since 1996, we forget that he also has a solo career which brought him to produce 8 albums since The Story of the Clouds in 1994. It's also the man behind M.O.B.S. (Man of Berlin School) who made the sublime Aus Dem Nichts in 2014. Album which fascinated the little universe of Berlin School because of the secret character of his designer and the quality of the music. THE BREAKFAST EVENT, which comes after the appealing Harmonic Steps produced in 2005, is the recording of one of the rare solo performances that Detlef Keller gave within the framework of the prestigious Schallwende EM-Breakfast in Bochum on December 6th 2015. And as the said so well Detlef, the essence of the music is to bring joy!
Eleven Years Later is a long minimalist movement which presents all the facets of the Detlef Keller universe. The music is soft and harmonious. It follows various small stages which lead us to its conclusion 45 minutes later. A layer with the perfumes of ether and with floating sibylline harmonies sway among the resonant reverberations of juicy chords, bringing the introduction of Eleven Years Later in its darkest territories. Some more bright chords ring there. They try to bring out this long minimalist river of its dark torrent. And a very fine sequence dances with these chords while the ringings of carillons add a more delicate touch. The harmonious bed settles down with these crystalline chords. And the movement of the sequence freezes a hypnotic rhythmic melodic with a tint of fluty voice in its series of skips. A line of bass gets grafted. It chews the delicate rhythm with small jumps and delicate pulsations. And the rhythm skips slowly with elements which are added and forge a kind of morphic hip-hop. Eleven Years Later follows its minimalist curve with small ambient interludes where the time stops around the tears of a synth. Details count here and Detlef Keller adds constantly elements of rhythms and very airy solos which get entangle around a minimalist pace always gently hopping. After a shadier passage around the 19th minute point, Eleven Years Later adopts a more fluid tangent with a series of twinkling sequences which keenly skip, such as a thousand reflections of a sun radiating on the surface of a peaceful water. The synth spreads some sibylline layers and the movement of sequences misleads the ear with fine nuances in its rhythmic flow. Even shining with these sequences, the phase is rather in an ambient mode. Like those good cosmic Berlin School! Our blissful ears, our sense of hearing follows this brilliant phase of sequences until that some beatings structure the rhythm which now makes us roll of the neck. The synth layers are soothing and have a little of Jarre in their perfumes. The violins point out and we are in the moods of the Repelen series. And always this attractive game of the sequences which parade between our eardrums with all the charms of a magnetizing EM. And the rhythm becomes livelier after the point of 30 minutes. The violins tune their harmonies with the sequences and the cosmic ambiences, making greater the depth of Eleven Years Later of which the changes of skin are always made in subtleties. Yeah... A damned good piece of music which ends by this movement of sequences which titillated our hearing throughout this long title of Detlef Keller which after all has absolutely nothing to envy to Aus Dem Nichts. It's very beautiful and actually the essence of this music is to bring joy. The joy to hear something as much beautiful and so refreshing than this THE BREAKFAST EVENT.
Sylvain Lupari (May 16th, 2016) *****
Available at Manikin's Bandcamp