Various Artists: Manikin Records Third Decade 2012-2022 (2022)
“There is no second of waste in this superb compilation where's Berlin School style is king”
1 The Return from Babylon 12:49 (Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder)
2 Bryce Canyon 10:34
(Filter-Kaffee)
3 Light & Shadow 8:32
(Pyramid Peak)
4 Nordlicht 7:44
(Mario Schönwälder)
5 Winter Wah 3:36
(Thomas Fanger)
6 On the Fly 9:00 (Menzman)
7 It's you, Peter 9:30
(Kontroll-Raum)
8 In Heaven 9:14
(BKS feat Raughi Ebert & Thomas Kagermann)
9 Immer Weiter 6:30
(Fanger & Schönwälder feat Lutz Graf-Ulbrich)
(CD/DDL 77:32) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
Already 30 years! It was in 1992, with his album Closed by my Distance that Mario Schönwälder launched the activities of Manikin Records. Thirty years later, the label has resisted the push of illegal downloads as well as the drastic decrease of sales and releases of manufactured CDs while offering an electronic music (EM) still as refined in its pursuit of the Berlin School style. A great achievement if we consider that in parallel, Manikin has contributed to the art of EM with the design of instruments that respond to the ever-developing visions of this music created and assisted by synthesizers. And like with each 10th anniversary, Mario invites the label's artists to share a previously unreleased track as part of the decade-long compilations. The hazards of the pandemic have complicated things a bit for this 30th anniversary compilation and, unlike the first 2 compilations, MANIKIN RECORDS THIRD DECADE 2012-2022 offers only 1 cd and gathers 9 tracks where Schönwälder's imprint is on 6 of them. True to the music of the label, the 9 guest artists have created long hypnotic minimalist structures that develop with the passion for art. An unmissable pleasure for fans of the label and aficionados of the old style that is renewed in the New Berlin School generation. Finally, I would be remiss to forget 2 great artists who participated in the rise of the label and who passed away since the release of Manikin Records Second Decade 2002-2012. Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock, more present in the development and testing of new technologies at Manikin, and Thomas Fanger who was the mind behind the Analog Overdose series.
The Return from Babylon sets the t