“This is a huge electronic symphony which will please to of all those who fed of these huge improvised surges by Klaus Schulze”
1 Monomode 51:53
(CD-r 51:53) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
SynGate is developing a plan with panache in order to make discover, across borders, all the skill of Frank Klare. Those who have known Berlin School-style of EM for ages appreciate his works inspired by the analog years of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. MONOMODE is an album offered as a bonus when you buy Solodreams and Solomode; two works which bring out all the talent of the German musician to compose hypnotic structures and Teutonic rhythms of the Berlin School, with a subtle orientation towards the New Berlin School. Composed of the two long parts of Monomode, which can be found on Solodreams, which are joined in one long 52-minute piece, MONOMODE remains a major work that Frank Klare composed in 1986, while he was with SYNCO. Monomode Part I was the missing piece of the puzzle that the German musician would find again years later. It was years later that the German musician would find his recordings. Pete Farn remixed the two parts into one long 52-minute piece of an EM that should appeal to fans of Klaus Schulze.
A soft line of synth drags a shadow of an old organ to open the first seconds of Monomode. It's a floating, soothing intro a bit filled by mystery where are hatching out some electronic tones which quietly invades our ears. Another delicate synth line develops sweet ethereal singings which float like these old messages of Klaus Schulze in this ambience where grumble some resonant sighs. And we hear! A little before the 5th minute, we hear this movement of sequence make waddle its ions through the soft analog perfumes of a charming synth. The rhythm remains as delicate as its atmosphere which doesn't stop hatching it. We hear sparkle and sing the shade of the keys which rock and run such as imps in a forest enchanted by the twisted singings of synthetised hummingbirds. As much quietly as subtly, the delicate hypnotic rhythm evolves throughout its nuances, both in rhythms as harmonies. The elytrons of steel give to this rhythm more cracklings while it's teaming up to a scraggy melodic shadow and its fine solos which grind like some witches' caresses on a structure about which the fragility keeps silent to let dance more starving keys. These hypnotic keys continue to skip on the spot. Their rhythmic jolts reach a bigger velocity and entail the stubborn beat in the heat of a heavy bass line. That's beautiful. Hypnotic and charming, Monomode hits strongly our eardrums with a rhythm, always so minimalist, which becomes heavier around the 18th minute while this rhythm swindles the ambiences with a heaviness and a velocity organized by pulsations which hammer a linear leaden rhythm, rock kind of percussions and sequences which flicker with restlessness. We are deep in a fusion of Body Love to Timewind. The atmospheres are hiding in some evasive waves of organ and ghostly synth lines of which the musical veil is pierced by solos which cut out, with a superb musicality, a rhythm which pulses with some more of vigour, while sequences get more aggressive and solos more assassins, as long as our ears demand a truce.
And this truce arrives around the 29th minute when sequences are glittering in a soft dreamlike ballet. One would say a small bed song which wants to charm both darkness and brightness with these little sequenced carillon lines which sparkle like the stream of sequences in Mirage. Yes, Monomode seems like a tribute to the big minimalist works of KS. And the movement amplifies its heaviness and its swiftness to kiss a fiery electronic rock where the layers of organs lay out the pattern of heavy symphonic rock. We stamp of the feet and we shake of the head on this rhythm viciously lively where the synth solos throw spectral nuances, marrying the fine jerks of the orgiastic strata of old organ. And always Monomode pursues its indefatigable minimalist rhythmic ride up until tread upon on the digital lands of Audentity and Dziekuje Poland in a sound slaughter where the rhythm is encircled of majestic solos and a subtle melody which floats as a souvenir of which one don't know its origin. And this breakneck pace ends in such a crash that elegiac dusts are floating everywhere around the last breaths of Monomode, recovering so a finale more ethereal where the ashes of a huge album, which makes a surprising journey in the heart of Klaus Schulze's analog and digital years, are scattering by leaving in the ear an immense desire to re-hear
Link into a long piece of music, I have to admit that I so prefer this way, or still pricked in Solodreams, MONOMODE remains an inescapable work for all those who fed their memories on these huge improvised surges of Klaus Schulze. It's an electronic symphony where the minimalist art was never so lively. Brilliant and the time have no hold on it.
Sylvain Lupari (October 24th, 2013) ****½*
Available at SynGate Bandcamp