Getting up for work before dawn is not really a pleasant experience but with this album as your in-ear companion, you can see things in a slightly different light. Schaefer was conjuring up dazzling minimalist other worlds when the current crop of experimental ambient producers were probably still listening to Blink 182 and failing to kiss girls. The experience is very much in evidence here displayed a restrained but skilled confidence, clear vision and sparkling production.
This download compilation takes twelve pieces made of installations, compilations, soundtracks and other such projects. The format is crucial to the structure of the album as it would not fit on a Single CD, would be too little for two CDs and would not fit on a double LP without diminished sound quality. This is a digital album full stop.
The music collected here is a hearty feats of musical gems. There is the sparkling but slightly haunting piano of ‘City of Dreams’. The vinyl hiss underpinning the sublime dreamscape of ‘Code for Dankworth’ will haunt your memory as you lay on the edges of sleep.
‘Inner Space Memorial (for J.G. Ballard)’ is an epic work of celestial drone. There are the sobering ecological warnings of ‘Asleep At The Wheel’ taken from an installation Schaefer created in a car in a disused supermarket.
‘Crossed Wires’ has a surprisingly dark horror film vibe to it and then explodes into a domineering, fluttering heavy drone but keeps suddenly cutting out to other things. It comes as quite a shake-up but that’s Schaefer for you, ever the unpredictable. Long may he reign that way.
via Was Ist Das?