“This is very beautiful album where the EDM style of Moonbooter always remains firmly attached to the roots of the New Berlin School”
Disc 1
1 Mono Ton I 3:18
2 Mono Ton II 5:17
3 Neil Armstrong 5:30
4 The Orbit 9:44
5 Walk on Air 3:10
6 Beatmusik 6:02
7 How Peaceful it Looks 6:13
8 Eiskalt 6:59
9 LEM 1:38
10 Transformation 6:21
11 A Moons Dream 3:44
12 Superfluous 5:20
Disc 2
1 Lost in Space 2:40
2 Anomalie 6:07
3 1987 5:16
4 Day After 1:58
5 Down Back to my Soul (Part II) 7:29
6 From the Dark into Light 7:48
7 Music on Hold 5:27
8 Machine Bugs 3:40
9 Voices from the Ancients 5:14
10 Carpet 2020 4:40
11 Alone in CM 2:26
12 Back to Earth 7:05
(CD/DDL 123:04) (V.F.)
(Electronica, EDM, New Berlin School)
Bernd Scholl is an artist who has never hidden his attraction to the Cosmos, its stories and its mysteries. It's therefore not surprising that he also makes an album celebrating the 50th anniversary of the space flight of Appolo 11. He does so with panache by offering nothing less than a double album which shows his two fondness in music with a nod to this other nebulous side of the Moon.
Mono Ton I sets the tone with a pulsating structure in mode ambient static with boom-boom on two line of rhythms whose intertwining forge a spasmodic approach. The musical aesthetic of Moonbooter shines with its thousand sonic lights with tangles of synth pads on dark cosmic visions and pretty good percussive effects that always tease a hearing eager for sounds coming from all directions. Mono Ton II follows with a more authoritarian vision in a rhythm armed with slamming percussions and murmuring effects from a strange choir. It remains static, heavy and slow! Like the progression of Eiskalt and its electronic envelope sewn in good vintage synth solos. Neil Armstrong arrives with an excerpt from an interview. The last echo of his words flirts with nervous and quavering arpeggios that sing with heaviness. A hesitant heaviness and stuffed with statics which introduces a solid rhythm resulting in good effects of twisted voices which seem personified those of extraterrestrials. The rhythm is nervous with juicy arpeggios which resound under synth layers galvanized by a tone flirting with the old Tangerine Dream. The more we move in BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON, the more the structures implant this rhythmic vision of Bernd Scholl who likes to surf on EDM with flair for very solid electronic rock. Like in The Orbit. This long title presents a dynamic rhythm which modifies its impulses a little to embrace these heavy, slow and circular phases which charm me so much. The play of sequences and the percussive effects enhance the quality of this very good title which shares its richness of EDM with a good New Berlin School. After the spheroidal and stroboscopic impulses of Walk on Air, Beatmusik fits in our ears with a structure of a Dub crossed with its Ambient House side. The arpeggios are very melodious, and the percussions very well thought out. How Peaceful it Looks is a good title that sounds so much like the industrial period of Jean-Michel Jarre. For me who loved Revolutions, this title is simply marvellous! There is not much going on, except a narration in a cosmic context, in LEM which rather serves as a springboard for a powerful EDM in Transformation. A Moons Dream is so good for the ears and the feet, with a good, nostalgic piano that disperses its notes in a darker than festive atmosphere. Superfluous ends this first CD with a modern electronic dance approach unique to the style of Bernd Scholl. A first CD that I found very good and which stimulates my interest for the second.
With Lost in Space, it's on a gentle pace that this second odyssey begins towards the other face of Moonbooter. There are beautiful layers of astral voices surrounding the Anomalie progression. This ambient melody lies on a slow and heavy tempo which becomes more intense after a short atmospheric phase. The percussions are heavy and hit us at each square-inch. 1987 is a hymn to cosmic dance specific to Moonbooter's EDM hymns, with a bit of a trance in it. The synth solos are simply divine here, while the evolution of 1987 is far from been trivial. Day After is an interlude to Down Back to my Soul (Part II). I have to dug in my souvenirs because I was pretty sure to have heard this melodic pace somewhere and it was on the Cosmoclimax album, that was released 10 years before. It's a dancing music with these circular sound beams from a synth lacking solos so unique to the style of the German DJ. From the Dark into Light is another good title of the genre, but with more emotions in it while the opening of Music on Hold can make us shed a tear. This introduction in silk follows an Electronica evolution while retaining its lyrical vision of its openness. Good Moonbooter who comes back to rock the house upside down with the furious Techno of Machine Bugs. There are several little gems of tenderness in this double album and Voices from the Ancients is undoubtedly the one that has the most impact. Slow and lyrical! I always like to be amazed, who doesn't anyway, and let's say that with John Carpenter's Halloween anthem on a background of a devastating dance with its boom-boom, Carpet 2020 is as unexpected as it's simply brilliant. Alone in CM is a short interlude to the jewel Back to Earth which crowns the 120 minutes of this BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON admirably well. A sweet melody strummed on a piano is quavering on a structure that remains in the ambient chill-out style. This is very beautiful in an album which can be listened to without any difficulty and where the EDM style of Moonbooter always remains firmly attached to the roots of the New Berlin School.
Sylvain Lupari (January 9th, 2010) *****
Available at Mellow-Jet Records