“Nano is another fine EM album from Fratoroler who aims to establish the links between the retro and the new Berlin School with a graceful ease”
1 Nano 20:24
2 Quarks 13:51
3 Macrozoom 12:32
4 Systematic Different 19:14
(CD-r 66:01) (V.F.)
(A mix of retro and new Berlin School)
An electronic dialect and intergalactic gurglings open the first seconds of NANO. The long title-track plunges towards a cosmic universe that Tomita once prepared with his brilliant Kosmos at the end of the 70's. Between the retro analog sounding and the new Berlin School, Fratoroler invites us to another fascinating sonic adventure in the heart of the Teutonic electronic experiments. Chords are ringing here and there, while Nano embalms our ears with electronic breezes. The silvery particles are melting in this immense cumulus of white noises of which the sparklings bleed to white the hot caresses of synths. Always, riffs and chords are roaming in search of a more tangible structure. And a crystal clear sequence goes out of this ambient slump where orchestrations sculpt beautiful listening favors. It drags a series of keys which skip of a light step, shaping an ambient rhythm which is nibbled by a bass line and its furtive notes. Both lines draw a harmonious sequences & bass duel of which the echoes draw parallel rhythms which complement each other, while another movement gets loose to forge a more fluid approach. The drizzle of breezes amplifies its stranglehold on this rather passive rhythm which, calmly, misleads its last beatings in a black hole where abstruse choruses and organi-cosmic chirpings fill ambiences which grazes the interstellar esotericism. Evasive solos, kind of Jean-Michel Jarre, float over this profound ambient passage, while a sequence escapes and entails its pals in a series of rhythmic loops which drum such as a light cosmic gallop. Here is of what are made the 66 minutes of NANO!
Thomas Köhler and Frank Rothe exploit at full the 20 minutes of Nano by offering an approach of minimalist structure which divides into halves its lazily chords in order to shape figures of rhythms which split, forging so some splendid and hypnotic harmonious rhythms, and go astray in some dense ambiocosmic passages where solos and electronic effects make the link between a retro approach and a more contemporary one. If Quarks forces the doors of a more steady rhythm (I adore these ambient solos which float all over the album) with two movements of sequences to the impulsive beatings and opposite tones, the more ambient and a bit gloomy Macrozoom plunges us into this delicious electronic universe where the sequences sleep, ring and float in forms of passive rhythms everywhere around suave singings of synth with sweet fluty fragrances. As for me, Systematic Different is the cornerstone of NANO. Its intro is perfumed by a sibylline approach with fogs, filled of spectral voices, which float on a cemetery where bones are dancing. An intrusive pad of a bucolic organ unveils a somber sinister smoggy chant which floats with lugubrious reverberations. We are in a pit for the black shadows, where Klaus Schulze has already been, when the brilliance emerges from the darkness and when pulsations meditate the slow ambient rhythm of Systematic Different. Definitively, Schulze has been here. A charming flute also pierces the moods. And its peaceful singing makes undulate some astral particles, whereas that a soft movement of sequences amasses its keys which wave in the curves of a bass line and in the feather hand of the soft floating orchestrations. The rhythm may do peaceful kicks that it stays of silk and scatters independent keys which split its line in order to enrich it with an approach as much more harmonious than rhythmic. We float at full in the cerebral rhythms. And the lines of synth are parading between our ears such as celestial bodies which illuminate at times a quite black cosmos. And the solos come.
Ambient and floating, they spread a musicality so vintage and so serene as the charm persists. And the sequences! Hot and juicy, they make kicks with analog tones which become entangled with the electronic dialects and which make that this music defined with difficulty its parallels between cosmic and esoteric. It's beautiful. It's very good and that completes another very beautiful album from Fratoroler. But are we really surprised?
Sylvain Lupari (October 23rd, 2014) ***½**
Available at SynGate Bandcamp