Album: The Radiant Sea
Richard Gürtler “The Radiant Sea”, a 74 minutes long album, excels with its creatively peculiar insignias, venturously captivating arrangements and superb sound quality as well as with its meticulously deep concept. This masterwork exquisitely focuses not only on Fukushima nuclear accident and ecological impacts of existing environmental pollution, but also on the mind-blowing mysteries and majestically grandeur beauties of the Pacific Ocean depths. What a journey, bravo, gentlemen!!!
Michael Foster The Radiant Sea is the debut release by Bridge to Imla (Hans-Dieter Schmidt & Michael Brückner) and is the perfect example of what happens when two veteran ambient artists pool their talents under a new moniker and make music together. What happens is that these two talented artists blend their skills and create a wonderful new album that goes farther musically speaking than either could have gone on their own. The beauty of collaboration in the internet age is that artists who are separated by distance who would like to work together can make it a reality simply by sending their pieces of the whole back and forth via the internet after they are recorded in each of their respective home studios until the project is completed.
The title The Radiant Sea may lead a listener to think that the music is going to sparkle and shine like sunlight glistening off the surface of water but contrary to the title the music goes much deeper than what a person might see reflecting off the surface of the sea. In fact if you look at the titles you will see that they concern water currents or geological places of the Pacific Ocean and some of those can be quite deep and quite dark. Just like the music. The music like the depths of the ocean is mysterious. The textures that define Bridge to Imla’s debut album are many shades of gray with little wisps of light that break through now and again as if you were looking up at the surface of the water from far below.
Beginning with track one the listener is submerged in these densely atmospheric soundscapes that ebb and flow much as the tides and currents do in the ocean that this collection of songs successfully evoke. Once you are caught in the flow of the music it pulls you along and compels you deeper into the shadowy-encased recesses of the water. While the music would properly be called drone music there are some exceptions within this body of work that remind you that while you may be surrounded by this watery expanse of mostly shadows and very little light the music modulates on your journey as it does on a song called Shatsky Rise that reminds the listener that they are not encased in absolute darkness on this journey. Around the 1:26 mark of this song it’s as if for a few minutes you rise to a point in the water where the light from the sun reaches you for a few moments and the music celebrates that light by becoming less dense and more melodic but not overly so because the journey to the depths is not over yet. The next track grabs you once again pulling you back into the velvety blackness that surrounds you as you move deeper still.
The music of Radiant Sea creates sonic landscapes that are memorable with their subtle electronic changes that continually alter the scene that the listener is being shown. While you journey through the Pacific Ocean via the currents and the trenches and the plateaus you begin to feel the vastness of the kingdom of which you have entered. The invisible undersea world is one that most of us simply take for granted since all we ever experience of the water is view from the surface. Michael and Hans-Dieter have chosen to explore this darker, innerspace world of shadows and slow-moving sea creatures that would no doubt be present in a journey like this. The music is mostly generated via synths and through some sampling and much processed household sounds but it has all been woven together seamlessly into this otherworldly soundscape that is both haunting and soothing at the same time.
The music speaks of the care and the attention to detail that was put into it by both Hans-Dieter and Michael and shows that distance is no obstacle to artists who desire to create music together in the 21st century. And to make these details shine even more the deft hand of Robert Rich mastered this project so that the diamond it already was shines that much more brightly. The Radiant Sea is an exploratory journey in sound that moves effortlessly from deep foreboding dark ambient to the lighter sounds and melodies of a composition like Louisville Ridge which offers the listener a place where the darkness of the water is not so pronounced. The music flows together in sweeping waves and in gentle, intimate eddies that try to capture the characteristics of the various locations that comprise this undersea journey. The recording quality is superb and the compositions show that Michael and Hans-Dieter are skilled musicians in the assembling of this work into a cohesive whole that offers us a sonic delight such as The Radiant Sea. The album is being released on a somewhat young but very successful dark ambient label out of the Netherlands called Winter-Light records on December 1, 2017. If you like this album be sure to support the label with your purchases and recommendations so that they can continue to release great music going forward.
This dark ambient album will be a standout for many years to come and should be considered a must have for your collection if you’re up for a sonic journey of discovery that will lead you into the depths of the Pacific Ocean and then bring you back out again.
Highly recommended by Ambient Visions.
Album: One January Evening
Behind the project name Bridge To lmla And Friends stand the electronic musicians Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt, who did a concert together with their colleagues Ralph Baumgartl and Volker Lankow in January 2018.
CD 1 contains the aforementioned concert (divided into eleven seamlessly mixed pieces) plus bonus tracks. Instead of reproducing only classical Berlin School, free associative meditative electronic music was offered, which could not easily be pigeonholed. “Varation On ‘Raukumara Plain'” for example, with its Asian harmonies, could have come from Ryuichi Sakamoto or David Mingyue Liang. Much of the music flowed like a sophisticated soundtrack to a movie or a nature documentary, remaining abstract or onomatopoeic, like in aquarelle colours. Simple melodies or beats only emerged slowly. Only “The Dream-Quest To Unknown lmla” (great Mellotron flute!) or “Drifting On A Southern Shore” are remindig of hypnotic tracks by Klaus Schulze or TD – in a most positive way.
CD 2 contains a jam session with more dynamic tracks, more solos and beats (and finally more Berlin school). Excellent: “Encore – The Pastonus Conspiracy” and “Rehearsals”. Top track: The Dream -Quest To Unknown lmla
Walter Sehrer, 8 (of 10) stars, “excellent” for ECLIPSED (print) magazine
“This is another strong opus from a duo which evolves from purely Ambient Music towards Tribal vibes and both side of Berlin School”
The Radiant Sea album was one of my big favorites in 2017! Released at the end of the year, this first album by the duo Bridge to Imla was to be at the core of a concert played in late January 2018. And as the worlds of Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt are not made of compliance, the duo offers a recording of this show in a splendid double album soberly titled ONE JANUARY EVENING. It’s a lot of music, and it will also be a lot of words from my pen, offered by Bridge to Imla with more than 45 minutes of this concert as well as a lot of bonus tracks and a solid Jam Session where Volker Lankow on percussions and Ralph Baumgartl on synthesizers add punch and depth to an album which gently sails between the tranquil waters of ambient music and the hungry territories for more lively music.
Always flirting with the limits of mysticism, the music of the album begins with these Tibetan bells whose tones cuddle the murmurs of Poseidon. Slow layers deploy their sonic wings and rise to take the paths of the opening of the studio album, in which Prologue: The Kuroshio Current becomes the pale ancestor of The Bronze Bells of Imla. The hold of the sounds and the intensity of the ambiances are more accentuated here than in The Radiant Sea. Variation on Raukumara Plain adds beautiful solos to the original title. In fact, the music of ONE JANUARY EVENING adopts the structures of the first album of Bridge to Imla but with a greater dominance on the level of everything, especially when Volker Lankow joins the duet in In an Imaginary Landscape. The ambient moods are darker and more enveloping with a higher level of emotivity. In total, 4 titles of this album are performed with variable degrees of variations. In addition to Raukumara Plain, we find Richards Deep, Intermingling Currents and the final Epilogue-Ring of Fire which also closes this concert. Even with an organic opening, Summer Nightsky is a logical suite of Variation on Raukumara Plain by propelling its harmonic loops in a decor built for anesthetic layers. Subsequently we discover the parallel universe of The Radiant Sea after a Variation on Richards Deep closer to tonal schizophrenia. From Procession Day to In an Imaginary Landscape, the music takes on the dark / ambient character of Bridge to Imla. There are percussive elements, well imagined by Volker Lankow, but everything remains soberly dark. Variation on Intermingling Currents is a title which brings together all the currents in The Radiant Sea into a compact mass of synth lines with cryptic colors. The percussion adds a tribal depth to this title which evolves with a good crescendo. The Dream-Quest to Unknown Imla follows with a slightly livelier texture. The synths multiply solos with hues as contrasting as musical, some are floating with Arabian perfumes, on a very meshing of various percussions which sculpts a tribal rhythm, absent in The Radiant Sea, which had to propel the spectators out of their idle comfort. In doing so, Variation on Epilogue-Ring of Fire follows the curve of the last minutes of ONE JANUARY EVENING to offer a much more intense finale.
This double album comes with almost no seconds left of to fill in. Thus, the bonus titles come with the hollow breezes of Nill & Nuchtig – Part 1 (Nuchtig) and its organic life that breathes in the decor. The next 3 tracks are small jewels of the New Berlin School style. Drifting on Southern Sea (Rehearsal) breathes the vitality of a sequencer in mode Software cosmic harmony. It’s a track which remains in the field of ambient rhythm but whose tone sequences, and these lines a little darker in the background, charm with a big C. Equatorial Passage (Rehearsal) is in the same mold but with less brightness in the tones of the sequencer and more vivacity in a rhythm in suspension while the elements in The Dream-Quest to Unknown Imla (Studio Version) charm a livelier rhythm weaved on a meshing of percussions and sequences. We put CD 2 and we dive into this great Jam Session where Volker Lankow and Ralph Baumgartl join the duo for Intro – Plaenkel in G to Encore-The Pastorius Conspiracy. We notice that the dynamics have changed and that the results are quite attractive. There is a very interesting project in the air and that could turn out into something bigger with a remix of this section which nearly lasts an hour. Ambient music with experimental perfumes and animated with a very Berlin School vision, this is the result of this Jam Session without preparation (we hear musicians who are not on the same page in places). Very good, even with a quality which witnesses of a night of rehearsals. Nill & Nuchtig Part 2 (Nill) is like the other! Unused Track 1 (Rehearsal) and Unused Track 2 (Rehearsal) show beyond doubt that Bridge to Imla is as much at home in the good old Berlin School and / or cosmic rock of the 70’s as the ambient music or this delicious passage very Software at the end of CD 1.
All in all, and even if one doesn’t like ambient and dark music, since ONE JANUARY EVENING is clearly more sibylline and darker than The Radiant Sea, this latest opus of Bridge to Imla is a safe bet. One finds everything in this hybrid album where the reflections on Ambient Music of the duo evolve towards a great tribal rhythm at the end of the concert and towards some very good Berlin School in the sections Bonus and Jam Session. There are too many good times in this album for an Ambient Music and / or Berlin School (retro or contemporary) lover to miss out this ONE JANUARY EVENING. As for me, I have understood for a long time that when the name of Michael Brückner is on a project, it becomes a must.Sylvain Lupari (August 4th, 2018) ****½*
Album: Lost
“Lost” is the second studio album of the project Bridge To Imla by electronic musicians Hans-Deiter Schmidt and Michael Brückner. It says that the geological age of the Changhsingian, which serves as the concept for this disc, led to a mass extinction at the subsequent so-called Permian-Triassic boundary a good 250 million years ago, which was unique in the history of the earth so far. A big wink with the index finger. The title track starts with an ominous soundscape that comes close to a classical piece on a great Greek tragedy; cello and violin sounds sing a mournful song.
“Rivers of Pangea” reaches almost 18 minutes and tells the song of a once untouched archaic nature. One literally wanders through this oversized landscape millions of years old. Some electronic sounds are reminiscent of pioneer Eberhard Schoener. “Changsingian” is short, but as effective as a film score. “These Trees Are Our Homes” is melancholic.
But the musical imagination always hangs high.In “With The Rising Tide” you are right in the middle of the subsiding of an ice age. A fantastic, hopefully instructive journey! TOP-TRACK: Rivers Of Pangea
Walter Sehrer 8 Stars (of 10) for ECLIPSED (print) magazine
“The music can take us to unique soundscapes like the one on the cover”
LOST! There are many ways to be lost. Lost, as in getting lost or lost in thought. Or simply being lost between two ideas…between two projects. It is a bit this lost that Michael Brückner refers to for this last Bridge to Imla album composed, recorded and mastered with his accomplice Hans-Dieter Schmidt. We go back to the time of The Radiant Sea when the duo was in charge of the Winter-Light label. Composed to be performed live, the music of The Radiant Sea became lost in time. For 9 months! The German duo set about composing alternative music that has found its way to this point. LOST was lost on recording tapes since the formation of the duo, which offered its music primarily on SoundCloud, from 2012 to 2021. LOST is nothing more and nothing less, for the most part, an extension of The Radiant Sea. So, an ambient music full of mysteries and legends…
It’s with the moaning of a cello that the title-track plunges us right away into the ambiences of the album which started with a buzzing burst from which a good fight of chimpanzees is setting the moods. Ambient track with echo effects rolling in loops and evasive melodic episodes, Lost draws our attention with this cello, which will become a crying violin, injecting a lyrical drama in intense musical arrangements and a sound magma filled with a dialogue still to be decoded. After a short introduction of electronic material, Rivers of Pangea unfolds its minimalist structure of sequenced keys that roll in ascending loops. Synth layers, floating rather than flying, caress this continuous horizontal ascension having this characteristic to absorb everything that passes and to filter it in soft ambient melody. The bass extends its vampiric shadow accompanied by the hoofbeats of a one-legged man while this flute coming from nowhere blows a melody with a hint of the Middle East. A beautiful music that loses its slight rhythmic dominance around the 8th minute to lead Rivers of Pangea into a violin/cello dialogue surrounded by sound effects of a nature that gradually comes back to life. Beats! Strange beats that sound like those old dinghies floating on big rivers choking and coming back to life under the soft incantations of Mike Oldfield‘s piano. The only thing missing is The Sailor’s Hornpipe! Changhsingian is of the ambient expressionist kind living in a swamp and its evil spirits. Spirits having taken a more organic form in the opening of Valley of the Sunken Forest. A bass line waits for the half-silence to settle down to make its slow beats hatch, whose irradiation forms a creeping layer. This fascinating rhythm attracts a piano that plays alone in this forest abandoned to water. We call it an incredibly beautiful title built out of nothing! A wavelet of harmoniously oscillating sounds brings the wailing violin of These Trees are our Homes to our ears. The swaying rhythm quickly becomes an earworm, even with the swarm of distorted tones and distortions jostled randomly in an evolution that brings us into an Asian ambience filled of sadness.
Footsteps, like mini explosions, in the water awaken the sibylline ambiences of Ice Shelf. You won’t find more disturbing than here in LOST. The stoic, repetitive beats of the bass travel through this track that never breaks free from the clutches of its introduction. Reverberating threads streak the sleeping delicacy under With the Rising Tide. Water pearls tinkle in this buzzing scenery which is filled with fine synth layers whose orchestrations are like badly retained explosions. One feels the dormant power of this title by its reverberating filaments and its synth layers contained in a seraphic vision. This is a good moment in this album where the tension remains at the zenith. A pensive piano crumble its musings as the powerful woosshh and waasshh rise to guide this serenity into a two-minute tsunami of sound. Withdrawn water echoes the damage with messy gongs and that ever-weeping Chinese violin. Cruising Dark Seas is a mini With the Rising Tide, more musical. While very cinematic, the music of Good-Bye to these Fields of Gold is built for the kind of farewell in Hollywood movies. Without being the total image of its title, the music of Of Nightmares and of Dreams hardly breathes this difference between the two states. We find two musical currents. One built on the softness of the piano and shimmering effects rolling in loops while the other is directed towards a turbulence swollen by various tinkling and roaring shadows. In short, everything depends on how we see, we hear and feel things!
Very generous with their art, the duo makes available more than 40 minutes of additional music if you buy LOST, in cd version or download, on the duo’s Bandcamp site. The Session 2012 chapters offer more serene, even more acoustic variations of some of LOST‘s passages. And Session 2012 (Part 5) takes a more electronic progressive rock tangent. Delicate with its philharmonic vision for chamber orchestra, Dreaming at Hanging Rock is part of an esoteric music compilation to raise funds for the 2019 winter bushfires in Australia. A beautiful 40 minutes that brings a more purified vision to the musical drama of this very good ambient music album.
A bit like The Radiant Sea, the universe of LOST seems to be on the verge of exploding without ever getting there. This duality between these ambiences and the melodies, strongly guided by the violin and the piano, manage to give magical moments. But you must let yourself be enveloped by the ambiences and the music of Bridge to Imla if you want to travel through musical fantasies that serve your imagination. And when we have two strong musicians like Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt, the music can take us to unique soundscapes like the one on the cover art by Andreas Schwietzke.
Sylvain Lupari (April 13th, 2021) ***** SynthSequences.com
Album: Ambient Chapel
“An ambient work that sails in the darkness and between its 4 main visions”
Following the album One January Evening, AMBIENT CHAPEL- Live at Schlosskirche Rumpenheim 2018 is the second concert recording from Bridge to Imla. This one was held as part of the Rumpenheim Art Days in the Schlosskirche Rumpenheim chapel in 2018. For this occasion, Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt invited the percussionist and ambiences sculptor Volker Lankow. The trio thus sculpts an atmospheric work that sails in the darkness between its pastoral, bucolic, tribal and electronic visions with improvisations tinged with an attraction for tribal music and Jazz, especially in the second part of Set 2. Available as factory-pressed CD and presented in a cover whose brassy colors embrace many passages of the album, AMBIENT CHAPEL- Live at Schlosskirche Rumpenheim 2018 also benefits from a good bank of samplings at the level of voices and sound effects, thus enhancing the abstruse character of an electronic music (EM) rich of its paradoxes.
The Rumpenheim Performance – Set 1 begins with a buzzing breeze and a tenebrous synth wave. Monks’ voices hum a psalm whose indistinct murmurs turn around a light swirl of electronic sound effects on a passage where the two extremes are engaged in an interesting duel between pastoral ambiences and an electronic music torn between its contemporary and bucolic visions. These voices will return later in other forms and different textures. An electric piano rises above these first 5 minutes with the violins of clemency which make float their misty arabesques above a meadow where sheep graze. The paradoxes…! Driven by the inspiration of the 3 musicians, the music evolves in parameters of the paranormal with layers full of disparate spectres’ voices which melt in this agrarian decoration. Ambient and dark yes, the music of AMBIENT CHAPEL- Live at Schlosskirche Rumpenheim 2018 has the appearance of it. As it is also jostled by pre-recorded percussion samplings that appear as early as the 8th minute of The Rumpenheim Performance – Set 1. With no rhythmic goals, but seductive enough, they are the cradle of this drowsiness that takes hold of our senses, while the electric piano continues its oratorical flight also without any harmonic vision. The drums always plough an anaesthetic structure which melts under the immense soporific layers of an EM which makes a pleasant compromise between its cradle of meditation and its rhythm fractured in several places in this album. Except that mostly, the first part gives way to more atmospheric moments, like these ambient flute airs on a bed of intriguing sound effects from the 16th minute. Following a slightly more intense atmospherical passage, the percussions reanimate the ambient vision of this long 30 minutes track about 30 seconds of the 22nd minute. Some silky orchestrations wrap these beats that flirt with a tribal tendency nuanced by a good exploration of the bass line and keyboard riffs. Keyboard that also scatters these keys with a more melodic vision, not overly so, in a final segment of The Rumpenheim Performance – Set 1 that buries itself in the intensity of a layer of bluish and silver lines for a more esoteric finale.
More oriented towards percussions, The Rumpenheim Performance – Set 2 proposes an opening awakened by bass and/or double bass chords under these cerulean metal layers which mainly occupy the firmament of this chapel. Samplings of voices with indistinct words decorate an introduction based on mysticism that percussions make jolt with strikes always without rhythmic vision, but which are more similar to explosions of thunders under a firmament darkening more and more. The sun seems to come out of the darkness around the 11th minute with chirps of sparrows in beautiful orchestrations bringing a radiant sky. A virtual string ensemble embellishes this meditative passage, which continues beyond the 16 minutes, when the percussions start to drum around the luminous chords of the keyboard in an improvised clan dance movement that flirts at times with jazz aromas and further on with a purely electronic universe proper to Michael Brückner’s. Encore Rumpenheim continues the rhythmic improvisation started in the second part of The Rumpenheim Performance – Set 2. The structure is livelier and typical of these encores aiming at taking the audience out of the meditative trance of an EM designed to make us travel between its 4 visions.
Sylvain Lupari (04/04/22) ***½** SynthSequences.com
Album: Imaginary Rooms
“Here are 2 musicians that take the art of EM to its pinnacle”
In October 2019, Bridge to Imla gave their very first concert. For the occasion, the Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt project composed over 90 minutes of new electronic music (EM), Greenhouse being a track Michael had composed in 2002 under the title A Thin Line, which they performed in front of a rather intimate audience. The 2 German musician-synthesists had planned to immortalize the event with a recording of the concert, which would then be manufactured on CD and offered to fans of the duo and to the EM sphere. Unfortunately, an equipment failure rendered the project unfeasible. Considering, quite rightly, that the music was more than worth producing, Bridge to Imla decided to produce a studio version of the concert. The result is IMAGINARY ROOMS. A more than suitable title! This double-CD comes with an impressive bank of bonus tracks, as well as a video recording of the last 10 minutes of this concert, which took place at the Kunstraum gallery in Erlensee near Frankfurt. Generous as always, Michael Brückner and Hans-Dieter Schmidt offer over 4 hours of ME, including 2 solid CDs, immersing us in the fascinating world of Bridge to Imla. The music embraces all styles: ambient, dark ambient, tribal, drone, electronic rock and Berlin School, not forgetting flirting with progressive rock, IDM and even jazz. In short, another great album from a duo whose experience and know-how, both in terms of improvisation and more planned structures, take the art of EM to its pinnacle.
The introduction to this concert is sewn in a texture of mystery. Sound waves melt into a mass of sibylline vibrations, while softly chimerical violins caress the ambiences of (Please step inside our) Imaginary Rooms with their lunar sighs. Electronic effects, similar to an avian dialogue, invade these ambiences around the second minute. This is the moment when the first muffled beats begin to structure an ambient rhythm, a kind of downtempo uncertain of its future, whose rubbery, organic texture serves as a bed for a synth that weeps like a crying violin. A violin whose almost Arabian harmonies are replaced by equally morose synth solos on Imaginary Rooms (Early Rehearsal Version). If the addition of percussions and of percussive effects that resonate and dance with a stereo echo around the 5-minute mark add depth and vigor to the track, the resonant keyboard riffs that fall heavily inject a dramatic dimension to a finale that takes refuge in vaporous synth waves. Imaginary Rooms (Early Rehearsal Version) offers a little more dynamism from the 5th minute onwards. A delicate rhythmic structure conceived on cadenced chords, undulating lightly, emerges from the abyssal breezes that open Her Secret Room – Part 1. The upward motion of the sequencer is hypnotizing, both in its fluid beat and its harmonic texture, where electric piano notes and veils of melancholy violins are grafted on. The percussions solidify this Berlin School, which is more ambient than cadenced, while the clickings that tap-dancing over it add depth to the secret melody woven by the piano. It reminds me a lot of Exchange‘s music, namely the track Golden Point from the album Into the Night, as well as Suzanne Ciani‘s dreamy odes. Perhaps a little more nostalgic, the first 5 minutes of Her Secret Room – Part 2 follow the same tangent, eventually embracing a more e-rock approach dominated by good guitar solos. Chamber of Sorrows opens with a crash. From then on, a vampiric sound wave sets up its magnetizing web, with slow, winged movements hovering in the darkness of the opening. Muffled beats provide a thin thread of resonance, structuring a dark procession that surrounds itself with layers of chthonian voices and Tangerine Dream-like harmonies. The percussions are pounding this heavy but without a drive rhythm up until the sequencer lets go of an ascending movement of which the footsteps echo the same metallic crash of the opening. The zigzagging of the sequencer and the percussions combine to create a neuron-shattering rhythm, while the synths multiply harmonies from a universe bordering on twilight for the dead. For my part, I prefer Chamber of Sorrows – Early Rehearsal Version, with its heavier and more magnetizing, electronic-rock texture. Make Room! Make Room! is the first track to really get our feet moving. The tone of the organ gives it a touch of 70’s progressive music. In fact, it’s to this organ that we owe its liveliness, which materializes more when cadenced pulses structure a bouncy rhythm like a hip-hop one on speed. The synthesizer throws in short solos whose jerky layers embrace a rhythmic momentum that is now dominated by the percussions. In addition to the solos, the synths draw arabesques of abstract rhythm with jerky arpeggios and a multitude of sound effects. The keyboards take care of the rest, injecting a dose of psychedelia into this simply viral EM structure. The Palace of Mysteries follows with a vampiric layer that undulates and spreads a dense shadow of resonant vibrations. The ochre hue of the musical texture infuses a mood of ashen nebulosity into this track, which evolves into a slow tribal rhythm where the different shades of flute on the synths weave Middle Eastern harmonies. Men’s Room (…just Booze and Madness) is in a similar vein.
Dominated by a swarm of sound effects tinkling in waves of twisted reverberations, Greenhouse moves slowly along an evolving rhythmic structure. There’s a fascinating dissonance between the percussions and sequencer, which carve out a rhythm without drive, and the static texture of the ambiences generated by a mutating sound mass. The synth takes on the texture of an electric guitar and throws in some fine solos that hover and lament over a rhythmic structure as unstable as the atmospheric elements of Greenhouse, whose 4th minute is the cue to build a more upbeat, almost tribal, rhythm with more closely paced pulsations and percussive effects worthy of the Byron Metcalf universe. It’s a vocoder that settles the first moments of Hall of Memories between our ears. More in the ambient and/or atmospheric genre, the track takes us on an emotional journey to conclude the first IMAGINARY ROOMS CD. Deserted Homes kicks off CD2 with waves that travel in semi-formed circles. They undulate between the scarlet crevices of evanescent synth lines. A lively rhythmic movement emerges after the 2nd minute, with cadenced chords that gambol in a form of suspended gallop. This neuron-stirring rhythm sets the scene for a second half of good electronic rock. Solidified by percussions and propelled by vividly flickering sequence lines, Deserted Homes besieges our ears with other guitar textures and their sharp solos. The music is lively and takes refuge in a dense, atmospheric finale. Drones are at the origin of Men’s Room (…just Booze and Madness). The ambiences are dense, with a sound mass of grainy breezes and contrasting hues from which emerge a voice narrating a text related to the title. The track is in the purest Michael Brückner tradition, developing slowly to offer a second part centered on a rhythm that flirts with the downtempo genre. Pulsations and bouncing sequences combine their cadenced textures in a more danceable passage where the piano leads us into an almost tribal jazz vibe. The percussive effects that tinkle in a nice echo effect at the end of the track add even more charm to the music. We remain in ambiences a tad more ethereal with The Temple of my Blessings, which comes to life faintly with sparse beats. Crypt of Shadows continues this line of more ambient tracks with a very dark approach that is driven like a black procession by a horde of drones, hollow breezes and synth waves filled with sibylline hues. Living Space follows with rustlings, felted yowling-like tones, scarlet lamentations and electronic effects over a muffled rhythm driven by kind of suction pad pulses. We’re literally in the least lively phase of IMAGINARY ROOMS. (Back on the) Wide Open Road concludes this other impressive Bridge to Imla musical odyssey with a rhythmic structure that bounces lightly over frisk arpeggios seized by a metronomic bass pulses. The synth frees good fluty harmonies, while the piano lays down some evasive melody lines. As the track solidifies its rhythm a little more, guitar textures bite into its progression with screaming solos that remind me pleasantly some good Klaus-Hoffmann Hoock moments.
It’s no secret that Michael Brückner‘s solo, duo and trio universes can be heard with a panoply of bonus tracks. IMAGINARY ROOMS is no exception, with over 141 minutes of bonus music offered to those who purchase or download this double album. Who cares if there are some less interesting moments? The important thing is that fans get their money’s worth! And there’s plenty of interesting moments that fill our ears to the rim. Let’s jump to the longest tracks first, The Kunstraum Performance – Part 1 and Part 2, which is more or less like a good bootleg with a decent recording. It sounds like an audience recording. Tonraum – Part 1 is a long, cinematic ambient track more in the vein of Hans-Dieter Schmidt’s Imaginary Landscape project. Tonraum – Part 2 is also an ambient track. It’s less dark, and closer to Steve Roach‘s desert themes. At the end, the 3 tracks in the Early Rehearsal Version genre are the most interesting, in my opinion, of this series of bonus tracks, which only serve to confirm the talent and artistic creativity of a duo who are filling our ears and minds with an excellent album that is IMAGINARY ROOMS!
Sylvain Lupari (June 28th, 2023) ****½* SynthSequences.com