“The music here weaves canvases of reminiscences of a beautiful era that seems inexhaustible, both in terms of musicality and quality. But who the heck is this guy?”
1 Synchromystik 5:52 2 Die N-Strahlen 4:28 3 Fabrik der Träume 8:24 4 Das Kloster der Maschinen 6:40 5 Geisterwald 7:59 6 Zerfall 14:50
7 Das Unendliche Licht 5:57
(CD-R/DDL 54:12) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
Is it Peter Mergener? Chris Franke? Maybe even Peter Baumann? The mystery persists around Wolfgang Nachahmer of whom it's the 2nd album, Schattenjäger being an EP, on the SynGate label. Why do these names come to mind? This is the normal evolution of things. There were good perfumes of Tangerine Dream in Hexenkessel. Then came Eiszeit where these perfumes were clarified with a print of Peter Baumann on the ambiences and the synths. And now this SYNCHROMYSTIK!
The title-track is born of a nebulous vapor. A brief gothic moment before the sequencer makes its keys resonate and jump in a pattern of perpetual ascending loops where footsteps zigzag as if alcohol is too present. The flute makes its songs dance, like the Mellotron of Baumann. The pads of voices are very Software, Chip Meditation to Electronic Universe Part II era, but also to these albums of the Mergener/Weisser duo. There are also those synth harmonies which sing in mute, like the apocalyptic trumpets that followed the synths of TD in the Encore years. The sequences? It's like a beast with 3 heads and you can imagine what heads I'm referring to! Always as it, Synchromystik begins an album which has never cut ties with the first two albums of this imitator of Wolfgang. Do you have doubts? I understand you! But take a close look at the structure of Die N-Strahlen. It's Baumann from the Trans Harmonic Nights period. Ditto for the very strange and intense Geisterwald and its cachet of movie music. Those who have enjoyed the first 3 opuses of Wolfgang Nachahmer's discography will also love this SYNCHROMYSTIK. One swims in the same atmospheres, the same patterns of hypnotic sequenced rhythms. And especially in this certainty that talent is there. Everything is well structured, well defined. And especially well produced. We are dealing with someone who seems very experienced and who likes to thwart the prognostics by perfectly imitating the 3 names listed at the top of the text. Unless ... A rippling shadow of reverberation is approaching Fabrik der Träume with a slight scent of the Middle East. The timbre of the synths is resonant and ends up clearing a steelworks mist from which emerges a first fragile and hopping rhythmic pattern. A second line, forged by bass sequences, imposes its presence by accepting a fusion with the first one. This rhythm becomes heavy, resonant and zigzagging. Its quiet flow is conducive to a symphony of songs of a synth that will impress our ears with precise and incisive solos, like the guitar of a rock star. And if it that would be Paul Haslinger? Or maybe Ralf Wadephul!? Take for example Das Kloster der Maschinen. It's a title, in a more contemporary and more psychedelic vision (because of these spectral waves) that has Flashpoint essences.
These waves of spectre, or these songs so acute of the synth, feed the Berber procession of Geisterwald which has the seal of Peter Baumann in every second of its evolution, except for the psychedelic-electronic aspect. Zerfall is an evolutionary title with an opening sewn in reverie. Sound images pass between our ears with a seraphic vision, even if some chords throw an aura of mysticism. It's like two entities of Tangerine Dream, one that would be Phaedra and the other Legend, which annex their differences in an opening where the chthonian side of the Dream wins. A big 6 minutes of atmospheres that a movement of the sequencer is hunting with a pattern of two lines of rhythms not quite in symbiosis, but not far. Percussive elements join this structure as effective as a Baffo Banfi cosmic cha-cha-cha. This rhythm of 4 steps forward and 2 others behind is the cradle of a minimalist phase which gradually gets covered with seductive sound elements, like pads of singing fog, a synth with a timbre of trumpets, other sequences imitating the nightingale chirp and good solos that brings us back to the vintage years, even if the approach is contemporary. It's not the best track here, nor Wolfgang Nachahmer's. Das Unendliche Licht ends this SYNCHROMYSTIK with a cinematographic approach ideal for a horror movie. Knockings, haze of a full moon in the moor and wolves' crying are among the elements that adorn its intro. The rhythm that comes is fluid and catchy. Supported by a line of bass sequences that plies the plains like a ghostly cavalry, it goes up and down with this Berlin School approach that synth solos master as well as they charm us with this very TD tone. And breaking on a reef of ambiances, the rhythm of Das Unendliche Licht is like this last prey who struggles to survive. But in vain!
A little journey back in time and a guessing game? Why not, as long as the quality is there. More than a mere imbroglio to unravel, the music of Wolfgang Nachahmer weaves canvases of reminiscences from a beautiful era that seems inexhaustible, both in terms of musicality and quality. The music in SYNCHROMYSTIK is not what I would call complicated, not even its longest title, but it's beautiful and it looks like Mergener, Baumann, ...
Sylvain Lupari (May 7th, 2019) ***½**
Available at SynGate's Bandcamp
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