“Perpetuum Mobile is an honest compilation which makes a fair glimpse of Rudolf Heimann's career”
1 Up & Down the Waves 6:26
2 Is not Easy to Fly 6:04
3 Two Ships 6:02
4 Several Thousand Questions 6:23
5 Brain Flight 6:16
6 Smurfs in Space 12:57
7 Coral Iceland Memories 7:04
8 The Search 7:56
9 Heaven's Gate 6:22
10 Moonshadow 10:48
(CD-r/DDL 76:23) (V.F)
(New Berlin School, EDM)
Rhythms! Lot of them. The very lively rhythm of Up and Down the Waves will remind to some of you a kind of mix between Somekind of Wonderful, from Grand Funk Railroad, and It's only Rock'n'Roll to Me by Billy Joel. And for those who know a little Rudolf Heimann's repertoire, we recall having vaguely heard this music on his Tide album in 2010. Normal! After a career of 25 years, including a thin discography of 7 albums and following the good response among fans regarding the album Into the Unknown in 2013, Rudolf Heimann proposes in PERPETUUM MOBILE a compilation of 10 tracks where his sometimes noisy rhythms moves the senses and charms the ears with all their nuances.
If Up and Down the Waves bites our feet immediately with a steady and very electronic rock rhythm, Is not Easy to Fly proposes a New Berlin School track where the kind of Space Rock a la Software floods our ears with some beautiful memories of the 80's. The rhythm is ambient and upward. Perching on a delicate mesh of sequences and percussions, which trace a slow delicately jerky ambient spiral, the harmonies are woven in electronic guitar riffs and streams of voices in mist and flutes which caress our senses up until the solos of Morpheus hugs them. It's very good, just like the super gorgeous Moonshadow which was the cornerstone of Into the Unknown in 2013. Two Ships is lively and takes us out of the arms of Morpheus. The title swarms on leaping sequences and percussions which hammer them. Only the synth solos, which are fairly well sculpted, and the organic language remind us that we are in the spheres of New Berlin School style, instead of a synth-pop fed by spasms and artifices. Ditto for Several Thousand Questions which is a big techno, quite original all the same, which would easily compete with the genre of Element 4. It's musical enough for such a frenzied rhythm, and the harmonies of the piano brings the debate back to whether Rudolf Heimann is doing in New Age or dance music without filters. I may have tried, but I did not hook on the very old sound of Brain Flight which awakens in me painful memories of a Tangerine Dream mutating to please an American audience. Smurfs in Space is a long synth-pop split into a cosmic envelope. There are little things here that appeal to hearing and that weave tireless earworm. Ditto for The Search, here it's the game of sequences and percussion, which on the other hand is more genre dance. Coral Iceland Memories plunges us into the golden years of the Innovative Communication label. These years when Software reinvented the genre of dance music with chill approaches on somewhat groovy rhythms. All of this, in nice cosmic atmospheres. It gives an interesting Reggae approach. Heaven's Gate reveals a slow, heavy and languid rhythm always perfumed with these cosmic atmospheres and these intuitive melodies that punctuate the music, sometimes a little too much dance, of Rudolf Heimann who offers in PERPETUUM MOBILE an honest compilation which makes a good overview of her career. There are little gems in there, as there is music inspired for those who like to dance, those who like to stroke the floors of kicks with robotic taps.
Sylvain Lupari (April 29th, 2015) ***½**
Available at Syngate Bandcamp