“This album is an excellent return to the roots of the Berlin School such as drawn by Tangerine Dream”
Pt. 1 A Hunter's Dream @ 0:00
Pt. 2 Mindseeker @ 6:05
Pt. 3 In between @ 30:10
Pt. 4 Crying Child's Walz @ 34:10
Pt. 5 Sleeper @ 39:00
(DDL 42:03) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
One of the advantages of Bandcamp is the possibility to buy works that almost no one believed in. Forgotten albums on recording tracks or on hard disks that some musicians have kept for almost 30 years. Like this MINDSEEKER by Eric G. Composed in 1983, this album is a kind of personal anthem of the Swedish musician to the Berlin School style of Tangerine Dream, periods 73-77.
This 42-minute long title is segmented into 5 parts. And it's in a cosmic panorama that A Hunter's Dream begins this journey of 27 years earlier. Sound effects of the time adorn a feeling of emptiness which gradually fills with the reverberations of the isolated steps of a line of bass pulsations. A fluty chant worthy of the 70's rises from a Mellotron. A flute in a psychedelic Cosmos! The bass redirects its diffusions which merge in a blue fog bank which advances with these waves rolling in opposite direction up until crossing the second part, Mindseeker. This 24-minute gem makes its sequencer play around the 7th minute. The movement is lively and curt! The mephistophelic layers of a gargantuan organ that have been rife since the 6th minute contain as best as possible this fury of the sequencer. The two entities are so dense that we forget that the cosmic decor in the background is still alive. And it's this decor that now welcomes this rhythm that has subtly changed its appearance. The Peter Baumann style flute returns to charm our ears while the sequencer adopts a more fluid tangent under the cosmic wooshh and waashh. Barely modifying his rhythmic journey, Eric G. plays with the nuances and the fluidity of the rhythm which welcomes very good synth solos in this passage which is a good Berlin School with this tone of yesteryear, good to dream. The portion of In Between is an ambient passage with a good seraphic vision. The sequencer shines its keys with Crying Child's Walz. They drip one by one in a vertical non-rhythm which gradually becomes a melodic accessory that a double bass envelops with its warm resonances. Like a morphic rhyme, the harmonic flow dares a dialect with a synthesized language, to finally melt in beautiful cinematographic orchestrations which lead us to the enchanted flute of Sleeper. This delicate astral poetry brings us to a final that is lost in the intensity of the artificial winds.
An album that certainly didn't deserve to be forgotten, MINDSEEKER is an excellent return to the roots of the Berlin School as drawn by Chris Franke, Edgar Froese & Peter Baumann. A must as we say that will surely please nostalgic of vintage tones and aficionados of the genre who are particularly looking for vintage perfumes from Tangerine Dream.
Sylvain Lupari (July 16th, 2020) ****¼*
Available at Eric G. Bandcamp