“Soundtrack for Dreams is mainly a deep and great incursion in the filmic moods of TD. Awesome!”
1 Labyrinth 2:56
2 Unknown Excursion 3:11
3 Orientalic Excursion 6:34
4 Through the Spheric Timegate 6:51
5 Stratospheric Impression 4:47
6 Living Illusion 1:50
7 Twilight Situation 4:45
8 Timegate through Underwater Worlds 3:42
9 Cosmic Lovescene 3:55
10 Confrontation 5:29
11 Dream-Surrender 1:06
12 Running Away 2:52
13 Vision of a Timebridge 4:57
14 Garden of Wonders 1:40
15 Awakening out of Dreams 6:51
16 Rising Back to the Dreamlands 4:29
17 Dreamgirl on the Broadway - Dream or Reality? 3:42
(CD-R 69:37) (V.F.)
(Cinema, Berlin School)
Dark riffs of keyboard dances on heavy percussions. Lighter chords float at the same time as some very ethereal choirs. We frown and we wonder if we are not listening to a piece of music forgotten in the vaults of Tangerine Dream, periods Thief or still Flashpoint. With its rhythm hammered in a relative nightmarish sweetness Labyrinth spreads all the weight of its paradox between the naming of its album and the sudden way of finding the heavy electronic rock of Tangerine Dream very inviting. Playing on the various creative stages of the famous Berlin trio, SOUNDTRACK FOR DREAMS has nothing of a soft invitation to reverie. It's an album of pure and hard electronic rock which drinks of the influences of Tangerine Dream and of its more cinematographic approach with short tracks, filled of beautiful moments of ambiences, where one hears with pleasure reminiscences of the Thief to Poland while passing by Le Parc. But let's start of its genesis … SOUNDTRACK FOR DREAMS was initially realized in 1999 on Frank Klare's personal label (Traumklang Self-Released TK-CDR-9). This first version offered 11 tracks named Dream 1 to Dream 11. A first remixed and remastered version saw the light of day in 2006 on the German label SynGate with 6 new pieces of music. Rapidly sold out, SOUNDTRACK FOR DREAMS saw a 3rd edition, always on SynGate and on the same format as in 2006, on October 2010. Although written between 1998 and 2006, the music is a mosaic of heavy and lively e-rock which doesn't suffer at all from the artistic gap between its 8 years of writing, thanks to a very good mixing of sequences (made by Valleyforge's Thomas Bechholds) and a very beautiful remasterisation made by Bernd Moonbooter Scholl, such as we can discover when listening to Labyrinth and to Unknown Excursion.
The first sequence of rhythm of Unknown Excursion is directly attached to the last beating of Labyrinth and the track offers a strong electronic rock à la Bondy Parade or still Dr Destructo. Orientalic Excursion presents a superb melody imprinted by perfumes of East on a bed of twinkling sequences. The rhythm takes time to take shape. Floating between harmonies and ambiences, he flogs the time with powerful electronic percussions which pave the way to a great silky melody and therefore a catchy musical itch. Lively and harmonious, we shake of the head and we stamp of the feet such as in the summer of my 14 years with a soft perfume of Patchouly. The symphonic synths of Through the Spheric Timegate caress a structure of circular rhythm where spheroidal sequences are harpooned by percussions of which the hammered knocks melt down again the rhythm in a more linear approach. Still there, Bondy Parade or Dr Destructo, but in more ethereal mood. Stratospheric Impression offers a more evasive structure where the rhythm is slow and pounds with a certain heaviness, a little as in Twilight Situation and its filmic approach which reminds me of Near Dark. Jingles and percussions hit a hypnotic rhythm that the voice of Sabine Klare overhangs of esoteric singings. Living Illusion falls in our ears with a wave of sequences of which the undulations flutter nervously before tumbling in the filets of percussions and their electronic military rollings. Simple but efficiently catchy! And as we go on into our discovery of SOUNDTRACK FOR DREAMS we find that the rhythms and the moods which are hiding there are all of known territories. And the music is heavy. If we hear with obvious fact the influences of Tangerine Dream, we also hear the very personal approach of Frank Klare whose creativity has to nothing envy to the multiple faces of Edgar's bands. When our ears uncork Timegate through Underwater Worlds, we perceive a subtle different between the eight new tracks which separate both releases. Here, the recollections of the Dream are closer to the Le Parc years with a movement of sequences of which the vaporous tones remind me of Poland. The rhythm is more clear, less heavy, and remains very lively with this structure which flutters like the wings of a butterfly prisoner of his vertical tube. After a quite cute and lively Cosmic Lovescene, Confrontation dips us back into the moods of a Thief perfumed of the powerful blackness of Near Dark. It's a great track with a brilliant game of electronic percussions which ends in the bouncy Teutonic sequences of Dream-Surrender which leads us towards something like ambiences of The Keep with Running Away. And if we miss the moods of Optical Race, we listen to the very melodious hypnotic tick-tock of Vision of a Timebridge which, at times, adopts a little the harmonies of Underwater Sunlight, especially with a very dreamy guitar. The harmonies are melting in the very ambient Garden of Wonders which brings us up to the heavy and powerful Awakening out of Dreams and the very incisive guitar solos, as well as mordant riffs, of Max Schiefele which float and gallop such as of melodious threats. Very good!
Rising Back to the Dreamlands and Dreamgirl on the Broadway - Dream or Reality? end a surprising album among which the essences and the spirit embrace the cradle of the influences of an artist who got himself literally the sound of TD from the 80's, as much by means of the equipments as by an obvious passion for the film music from Franke, Froese and Schmoelling. And I, I hear souvenirs of Le Parc floating in my ears after that the last notes of Dreamgirl on the Broadway - Dream or Reality? have fallen.
Sylvain Lupari (April 22nd, 2014) *****
Available at SynGate Records