“With its new sound textures and it's new tone in sequencing, nEW Frequencies Vol. 3 is not only just an album of dance music. It's an album of thriving tones, vibes and beats”
1 Moving Lights 4:28 2 Life Streams 5:04 3 When I Think 6:08 4 Time Transfer 7:22 5 Around the World 6:46 6 Space Horses 6:57 7 Upspace Dreams 8:13 8 My Baby 6:19 9 Faces 5:16 10 House Music 8:24 NEWS CDR12.003
(CD 64:57) (V.F.) (EDM, Dance styles)
First of all, give credit where credit is due! Robert Schroeder is a studio beast always on the lookout for a constructive and innovative idea that makes or/and will make progress the world of EM, especially in the style of dance music. This time, he takes us back to his highly stylized EDM universe with the third part of his nEW FREQUENCIES series. Some 8 years after the second part of this series devoted to dance music, our friend Robert still finds new ways to polarize the fruits of his new musical textures on rhythms set on fire by avalanches of percussion and a mixture of digital and analog sequences in a festival of sound effects, new as old ones, where it's better to hear the ears free of headphones in order to seize the unique dimension. The massive use of brass and vocals, both ethereal and true vocals, adds a futuristic Groove & Funk dimension to the whole of nEW FREQUENCIES Vol. 3 which starts rather soberly. With a good electronic rock spiced up by an entrance of shattering percussions and radioactive clouds which propagate their effects until the funky approach of the sequencer. Juicy keys hobble zigzagging through snatches of voice and percussions in mode ska beat. A bass line restructures the approach of Moving Lights into a very lively rhythm which is well supported by other but soberer percussions. The orchestral arrangements offer a good trio of trumpeters and saxophonists while the voices are the business of a Diva always colorful and whose image of that in The Fifth Element movie cannot be taken off my mind. The musical and sound texture is as rich and diverse as our ears may wish. Sober and half-dressed of sonic artifices, Moving Lights is the right title to bring us into the territories of futuristic dances visions of the sound engineer from Aachen. Life Streams follows with a kind of Ambient House which has retained its acid character. The rhythm is catchy with organic effects squeaking between the layers of voices, the exaltations of a robot behind a vocoder, the floating guitar blades and the wrenching streaks of synthesizer as acid as psychedelic honey. The vivid sequences and percussive effects in the form of rattlesnakes take the music out of its EDM bed, giving it a cosmic electronic tag. When I Think is an up-tempo purified by some fascinating synth solos which are as effective and creative as those of an inspired guitarist. The massive use of vocal effects, not only the layers of voices but the synthesized ones which really sing, brings us into the infinite possibilities of synthesizers.
Time Transfer is neither more nor less the equivalent of a revival of Earth, Wind & Fire on a catchy structure of Groove and Funkabilly in a House Acid version. The layers of seraphic voices which surround the ska beat of "Around the World" is one of the few elements of the Berlin School such as seen by Robert Schroeder in the days of his Floating Music album. Space Horses is very Rave with vivid sequences and DJ effects in a neo-punk festival. The play of sequences is hyperactive here, while ethereal effects add a floating dimension to a final that must rest its burned sequencer keys by an excess of activity. Upspace Dreams is a Groove without borders. Voice effects, explosions of percussions, shearing down of ambiences by synth blades free of cohesion and explosions for a new direction of rhythm are also the prerogative of this title which is undoubtedly the most relaxed one of this album. As incredible as it may seem, but I believe that My Baby invents a new dance style. I like this title because of the texture of the percussive effects and its chords filled of a little scent of Western. Faces is a meeting point between the old Disco and a Techno for intellectual extra-terrestrials, while House Music doesn't really need a description. It means what it means! Obviously, my lexicon on House, Chill, Ambient Chill and other forms of Neo-Techno styles being limited, I described to the best of my knowledge the many styles of Dance Music in this explosive album from Robert Schroeder who astonishes us once again by the diversity of his sonic discoveries. “nEW Frequencies Vol. 3” is more than just an album of dance music. It's an album of sounds and of musical textures which, assembled in the Schroeder way, find a surprising cohesion through the many elements of noises of the EDM. Each title reveals an auditory secret that surprises and makes you smile, as always. And let's be honest; as long as there are craftsmen like Robert Schroeder, the art, and whatever its forms, will always evolve with this innate concern to surprise and to charm. This is exactly the way to describe this nEW FREQUENCIES Vol. 3. Sylvain Lupari (June 5th, 2018) ***½** SynthSequences.com Available at Robert Schroeder Webshop