“Schwarzmond is another strong opus from Moonbooter who ties his Cosmic dance moods to some solid E-Rock wrapped in Berlin School fragrances”
1 Praeludium 1:15 2 Daft Moon 6:17 3 Deep Breath 8:06 4 LuLeLa 2:22 5 Epiphany 7:01 6 Nachtvogel (The Birth) 3:14 7 Satellite 6:19 8 Theia 6:49 9 The Raven's Light 7:26 10 Apollo 13 5:12 11 Nachtvogel (The Awakening) 2:43 12 238.900 Miles 8:33 13 Daft Moon (Reprise) 6:37 MellowJet Records | cd-mb1701
(CD 71:55) (V.F.) (ICDM with Berlin School moods)
Regular like a clock and always faithful to his style of Intelligent Cosmic Dance, Moonbooter gets back with his annual second solo album where his beats of dance are fooling around with some good electronic rock which always soaks in atmospheres of Berlin School. And in each of his albums, if my memory is faithful to me, Bernd Scholl manages to stick us a couple of musical itches between our two ears. And SCHWARZMOND doesn't make exception and starts with strength.
After the very ambiospherical introduction of Praeludium, Daft Moon spits its rhythmic poison with heavy pulsations from which every blow rises a line of sequences and its dusts of prism. The title is unequivocal! It's a hymn of dance with good orchestrations and a very selective approach of the effects on a contagious structure of rhythm. That's not really my kind, but the fans of Daft Punk here, and all over the album by the way, will be fooled by this so similar mood! Nervous in its static envelope, Deep Breath calms the tone with a structure of rhythm which will make our fingers dance more than our feet. Quietly, after the fury of Daft Moon, Moonbooter slides towards a music of dance more accessible to the fans of a more rock EM which is closer to the roots of Berlin School. A sweet morphic lullaby with a lot of bright stars tones which sparkle and float in a crystalline envelope, LuLeLa is the front door of this Moonbooter universe where the borders between pure Dance music, E-rock and ambient merge marvelously. Epiphany opens with a cloud of oscillating sequences which pound with a good static pace in the effects, one would say barkings of dogs, and in layers of mist where pearl absent voices. The bass pulsations emerge around the 57th second, giving a look of a hymn of dance and trance where get graft fragile harmonious chords. This semi-ambient phase goes for a structure of dance of the 70's with orchestral holds which spin on the undulations of a humming line and of clacking percussions. Nachtvogel (The Birth) follows with a good passage of retro Berlin School atmospheres with sequences, which make very Tangerine Dream of the Flashpoint years, which are dying in acrid vapors. There is some tension here which gets free of a chaotic and rodeo structure which is Satellite, a good electronic rock coated of twists and solos of a synth in harmonious mode which decorates a heavy and good spheroidal approach. It’s the kind of title that leaves its imprints in the bottom of our eardrums.
Theia opens the second part, the most delicious I would insist, of SCHWARZMOND with a solid and very catchy structure like only Bernd Scholl is capable of concocting. The approach is slow and lascivious while hesitating between the winged ballad of orchestral mists and a morphic techno ideal for a cosmic ballad. It's a great track that stays between our ears for a long time! So long that its flavors go towards the somber The Raven's Light which shows on the other hand a good swiftness with a rhythmic crescendo, a kind of bolero, as the seconds run out from the timer. Bernd Scholl likes to add effects of NASA voices to his structures. Here it's in Apollo 13 that they occupy the spaces of atmospheres. The structure of rhythm is a kind of a cross breeding between a spheroidal approach and another one bounding which oscillates between Jean-Michel Jarre and Daft Punk with effects of fat and nasal chirpings. Nachtvogel (The Awakening) is as much delicious as Theia and Nachtvogel (The Birth). It's too short! But its flavors flood the first steps of the very intense and filmic 238.900 Miles which, from the ambient and ethereal approach, gets transform into a good and lento electronic rock that Harald Nies peppers of superb and furious guitar solos. Daft Moon (Reprise) is the other side of the décor of the very Techno hammering Daft Moon and concludes SCHWARZMOND with a structure of cosmic ambiences which rests our ears of this very good musical mixture (yet, another one) in sounds, in tones and in rhythms of Moonbooter. The only artist who convinced me that the EM of the Berliner style and/or cosmic could get out of its bed without disappointments nor bitternesses.
Sylvain Lupari (February 28th, 2017) *****
Available at MellowJet Records