“Robert is the kind of artist you have to know how to tame to appreciate his style of New Dance Music”
1 Hold Me 6:11
2 Close Your Eyes 9:46
3 Ladies & Gentlemen 5:22
4 Lonely Heart Hurts 7:54
5 Northern Lights 9:58
6 Skyscrapers 8:41
7 Electric Music 7:18
8 Du Du DuDn Duhu 8:29
9 Use Your Brain 5:01
(CD 68:30) (V.F.)
(New Dance Music, EDM)
Robert Schroeder is the kind of artist that it's necessary to know how to tame by surmounting the barrier of prejudices in consideration of the musical genre. And from then on our ears are opening to a luxurious musical world decorated by a stunning and rich sound fauna which amazes every time a lost chord nests inside our ears. This is what happened to me while discovering Sphereware, Taste It, New Frequencies Vol. 1 and this last volume of the fearless musical adventures of the magician of Aachens. Robert Schroeder's wonderful musical world is misleading. The synth wizard and sound designer of an EM which is astride more than a universe of paradoxes likes challenging the limits of the conventionalism by realizing albums which alternate constantly between the mid-tempo, lounge and cosmic rock while transcending the comfort of the easy rhythms of a synth-pop disinfected by a commercial approach. nEW fREQUENCIES Vol 2 is a land of rhythms with tropical aromas encircled by a magnificent musical environment where the robotics voices à la Kraftwerk are scraping some heavy bass lines to make turn pale New Order.
One of these bass lines displays its echoing notes which resound in a universe of electronic cotton, while an angelic voice and a robotics vocoder whisper in a cloud of hesitating chords which furnish the cosmic intro of Hold Me. The rhythm falls a little after the 1st minute and Hold Me plunges us straight into this heterogeneous mixture of futuristic poetry where the artificial voices flirt with synth harmonies on rhythms as much suggestive as abstract, bringing the auditor to the discovery of a rhythmic universe which lurches between the groove, the lounge and the up-beat. The rhythm is soft and harmonious, as in Close Your Eyes and Du Du DuDn Duhu and its candid catchy tune, offering a kind of mid-tempo encircled by a synth full of melodious floating lines and riffs which dither constantly between two rhythmic paces. Interchangeable rhythms which live on percussions with stunning eclectic tones and on lines of bass which throb and buzz slightly in the shade of a synth and its harmonious clouds among which riffs and lamentations are similar to cosmic guitars. The more we move forward and the more the magician of Aachens displays the big rhythmic diversity of his last opus which is carefully coated with this harmonious synth which follows his tracks since Paradise. The use of vocoder also adds a sharply more robotics touch to nEW fREQUENCIES Vol 2 whom by moments exudes the cybernetics wanderings of Kraftwerk. If the first two titles embrace a Double Fantasy groovy tangent, Ladies & Gentlemen offers a more dynamic structure which moves under some musical stars and percussions which sound like an arrow thrown by a crossbow bended to its maximum. Although more livened up, the rhythmic structure is always encircled by an electronic veil in the smells of the New Berlin School.
Lonely Heart Hurts transports us towards in a universe of cosmic disco with a voice of Disco Queen. Northern Lights is the most progressive title here with a strong rhythm which quivers beneath superb synth lines with a disarming contrast. The bass line makes the loudspeakers tremble while the percussions imprison a curt rhythm which does some break-dance steps into ethereal harmonies that a synth imprisons of its lines subdivided between its oniric spectres and its envelopes of iridescent mists. It's a very good title which demonstrates all the amplitude of the diversified rhythms that beat in a musical setting vitamined of a harmonic research where the electronic melodies surround a host of abstract dances. Languishing and sensual Skyscrapers swirls in the stranglehold of a heavy bass line with gyrating circles. Divided between its vocal approach as well as its lines and its cosmic movements, the synth digs a ditch between the melody and robotic with a surprising ease. The swirling rhythm of Electric Music is fed by a bass line heavily funky which spits its circular chords in a staccato rhythmic shape. A rhythm superbly supported by a skillful game of percussions and sequences of which the keys resound as tones of xylophone which stick together and wiggle in a stunning dislocated spiral. The robotic voice reminds us of Kraftwerk. A Kraftwerk who eats Depeche Mode and New Order. Let say that it's a rather explosive title! Use Your Brain ends nEW fREQUENCIES Vol 2 with a heavy fluid and circular harmonious approach where the voices always have a strong presence on a title rich in musicality and of which the hectic rhythm collapses under this enormous musical mass which encircles an album with Teutonic rhythms and lunar harmonies. An album that only Robert Schroeder can offers without risking perturbing the rhythm of his multiple electronic personalities.
Sylvain Lupari (August 7th, 2012) ***½**
Available at Robert Schroeder Webshop