“The only surprise here is this surprising ease that Robert Schroeder charms and this no matter the hat he is wearing, like in this blend of lunar beats”
1 Save my Soul 6:29
2 Sweet Sin 5:50
3 Feel the Music 8:28
4 JazzMo 4:24
5 Night Games 8:54
6 Chill the Time 7:36
7 RadioWaves 7:44
8 Heart of my Soul 5:16
9 I Am Lonely 5:40
10 Stranger Morning 8:56
(CD/CD-r 70:00) (V.F.)
(New Dance Music, Electronica)
That can annoy! This double personality of Robert Schroeder can really annoy. Even divide the perception of EM fans towards him. But not that of his fans. Why? Well no matter the skins, the characters, or the way he approaches EM and exploits it in all its hidden recesses; Robert Schroeder does it with a passion which is at the measure of the results. And no matter the kinds, even if the results can sometimes disconcert, they are always at the very top of the standards of excellence. CLUB CHILL Vol. 2 is part of this hybrid personality of Schroeder where the musician of Aachen likes working the various sources of rhythms with tendencies for a funk style dipped into the idleness of groove beats, while always having a good dose of cosmic elements which eventually comfort an ear in search of an unlimited sonic wealth. And believe in me, this album is filled to the top of this wealth, and to satisfaction.
It's obvious that the opening of Save my Soul can bother. The voices of American soul and the cornets of trumpets … Hem not that obvious! But we have to keep in mind those words thrown on the background: I want some noises. And there are. As much as there is rhythm. We won't escape it. This rhythm is contagious with solid percussions but also with organic tones sequences and a line of bass which bites here and there, while that nervous arpeggios are dancing a weird cha-cha and the ambiences are weaved with strands of stars. Felted explosions, wild percussions, cosmic wadding, really lively trumpets; the wealth of Save my Soul transcends this first track which is a shy opening to what waits for us throughout this second chapter of Robert Schroeder's anthems for electronic dances. More relax and more groovy, we sway the hips lasciviously on Sweet Sin and its arpeggios of which the echoes glitter on a tempo just as much lively. These keys dance in their shadows, so much that it sounds like it is the stars which are really singing. The percussions, sometimes sober and sometimes slamming, plough a very melodious cosmic groove and the synth spreads some beautiful and very melancholic solos which sometimes overturn towards breezes of cosmic trumpets. Playing marvellously with the moods, Robert Schroeder multiplies sheets of mist which float here and there while these delicious keys which flirted so innocently with the cosmos are transformed into kind of guitar's ones which drip out like a rainy remainder. Rather cold and much more cybernetic, Feel the Music and its airs thrower of musical itches brings us back in the time of Food For Fantasy. The rhythm is strangely flabby, but the ambiences are rich.
JazzMo offers a nice ambience of lounge with a good beautiful piano which weaves the ropes of melancholy in a very electronic mood. This thing melts in the ear! And it is rather difficult to put a name on the swarm of rhythms in CLUB CHILL Vol. 2. Let's take the rhythm of grass-snake waving hypocritically on silk rocks that is Night Games. One would say some kind of hip-hop, but it isn't in spite of the lascivious wave-like movement there. Groove mixed with funk? Possible, because the ambiences are as much richer than the harmonies and beats of the soul music as on Save my Soul, except that the rhythm is slower and the synth trumpets are making interesting duels with an electronic guitar. I would say that it sounds like some cosmic Earth Wind and Fire! Chill the Time is like a delicious electronic samba with a very intimist vibe, whereas RadioWaves drives us literally in a kind of very cosmic groove with sequences livened up by an organic life. The vocoder and the voices of sensual women are nibbling a little bit a kind of synth-pop from the 80's, like also on the very lunar and lively I Am Lonely. We like these sequences which gurgle of an organic life? They are everywhere and they open Heart of my Soul and its lonely harmonies which weep in electronic fogs unique to the charms of Schroeder's musical synths. The structure is a little more in the ballad shape and we have to have the ears on the watch, because the noises are as well heterogeneous as very musical. Sequences as much polyrhythmic as percussions at the starts of much diversified rhythms, arpeggios with delicate lunar tints, synths with jazzy and cosmic fragrances and also with long solos as well creatives than very emotive, moods as ethereal as furious and a sonic fauna soaked with a lot of strange e-noises; Stranger Morning is a great conclusion to an album of rhythms, of dance music more cosmic than earthly where the beginnings of IC label stand out at full ears. It is like to hear Software, post-Electronic Universe, lost in the groovy vibes of Food for Fantasy. But chiefly, it is to hear an EM to the antipodes of the minimalist Berlin School style with rhythms so diversified as very lively. The only surprise of CLUB CHILL Vol. 2 is this surprising ease of Robert Schroeder to charm and this no matter his hats. But are we really surprised?
Sylvain Lupari (June 3rd, 2014) ****¼*
Available at Robert Schroeder Webshop