Member:
ffroyd
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by ffroyd)
Date:
10/17/2006
Format:
CD (Album)
The Garden of Delights label out of Germany deals with the release of mostly obscure items from the rich heritage of German progressive rock from the late 60s/early 70s. Only in rare incidents will they release newer music as bonus tracks and mainly to show the more recent activities of members of an older group. I’ve never seen a release with all new music at all from the label. Taking into account all of the brilliant releases they’ve had so far, a CD with new music on Garden of Delights would have to be nothing short of totally exceptional.
Yes folks, it is.
The project is called Level Pi, and in reality it’s supposed to be the Greek letter/math symbol but that doesn’t come out as good in this font so we’ll just have to work with what we can. Level Pi consists of just one person, Uwe Cremer from Düsseldorf, playing all the instruments. This is classic krautrock in the vein of such legends as Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, and many others. Mr. Cremer has created a wonderful album that sits proudly in a catalog of legendary German music.
The instrumentation is basically lots of spacey synth textures with a liberal amount of great guitar playing and some sparse drum parts. His guitar work reminds me a bit of Manuel Göttsching from Ash Ra. There are many great moments on the disc and I never find myself thinking the music is contrived at all. It’s hard to do this kind of stuff right these days without sounding a bit cheesy but Uwe has indeed tapped into the right formula. I hear a little Pink Floyd influence in some parts, too. There are a few vocal bits on the album but they are very brief and almost unnoticeable. His vocals on “Bad Weather” sound like they could have been on an early Faust album. The “Level Pi” suite has some nice wind sounds. There’s a few really nice sound effects scattered throughout the album, too.
This is a really brilliant CD and should appeal to just about anyone who’s a fan of good krautrock stuff. One thing about this that makes it different from the other Garden Of Delights releases, aside from it being new music, is the fact that since Uwe doesn’t have a long history and the booklet contains a complete discography of all 126 albums on the label. It’s a really cool reference. So maybe it’s only a start and this kind of music will be making a comeback…Let’s hope so!
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