“Pete Farn has a pretty good way of putting into music his odd visions of a world living beneath his dreams, there where stands Schwebewald”
1 Schwebewald I 10:50
2 Schwebewald II 21:29
3 Schwebewald III 10:58
4 Schwebewald IV 11:47
5 Schwebewald V 6:14
(CD-R/DDL 61:18) (V.F.)
(Abstracted and experimental EM)
The German label SynGate widens its activities by creating a division specialized for ambient or/and abstracted EM. Luna is its quite poetic naming and defined very well what waits for the listener when he dips his ears into the extension of this New World of fantasy and/or electronic relaxation of SynGate. Credit where credit's due, it's the sculptor of deep para- psychedelicosmic atmospheres, Peter Schaefer who uncorks the bottle of the ambiospherical youth with an album which explains without bombast the fates of SynGate-Luna. SCHWEBEWALD – BIOSPHERES Vol.1 is a curious album where Pete Farn locks the observer of sounds and ambiences in the heart of surrealist forests, there where these sounds and ambiences are the imaginary companions of a surprising virtual journey.
Schwebewald I calls out to us by far with these strange imperfect hoops which float such as sylvan spectres. The ears on the watch, we filter this universe of ethereal tones where the murmurs of owls and locusts harmonize their singings in fine clouds of reverberations, bringing this first phase of the album in a powerful sound frenzy where we hear dogs yapped of their metallic voices in heavy industrial clouds of radiations which buzz like a swarm of murderous wasps. Strange? You bet your ears! And the adventure is just beginning. The atmosphere is tetanising and a bit anguishing. After a heavy noisy finale, Schwebewald II lands with a more serene mood where a thick cloud of colorful tones breathes like the flora after a deluge. We hear birds pecked and dreamed above this dreamlike vegetation which offers its luxuriant green salad in an organic feast where eats an entomological universe of which the tones forge silhouettes of not yet listed tiny creatures. You have to admit it; Pete Farn has a pretty good way of putting into music his odd visions of a world living beneath his dreams. Schwebewald II is not of music, neither the whole album by the way. It's an organic symphony which let itself being caress by oblong, and very discreet, lines of synth, of which we hear the reliefs a little more when the flights of web-footed bird are brushing noisy the surface of waters from which we never hear the lapping. The hoops which collided and produced the strange yaps of Schwebewald I are back on Schwebewald III. This time, the din barks with intensity on the rippling lines of a synth which scatters its breezes of melodies flooded in this intense concert of barking. The second part becomes more serene and exposes the radiances of this ambiospherical monotonous chant which survives to a new attack of a delirious troop. This is a weird but beautiful ambient passage. A concert of uncommon carillons opens Schwebewald IV which frees a heavy breeze of anxiety with some heavy reverberations which buzz like radioactive clouds on an earth of devastation. If the first 4 minutes are alarming, the 2nd part offers an approach of apocalyptic serenity with some scarlet ringings glittering in fleeting tumults. A little as if the death, the devastation didn't want to give the second breath to this silvicultural life. And Schwebewald V of putting down roots about this perception that we have of this constant tearing between the beauty of the nature and the dread of its agony.
I won't be dishonest by saying that SCHWEBEWALD – BIOSPHERES Vol.1 addresses to a much targeted public. Those who like the rhythms and melodies will be quit for kicking their brain out. It's a feast of sounds and atmospheres at the diapason of a universe that we imagine always quiet and wonderful but which nevertheless is loaded of noises that may be hazardous if you are into music. Aficionados of weird and bizarre abstract art for ears might find their fun with this album that Pete Farn draws skillfully at knocks of sound samplings of an organic fauna and synths which put of the blue and the green on the black and the red.
Sylvain Lupari (April 12th, 2013) *****
Available at SynGate Luna Bandcamp