Centrozoon

I'm a fan of American composers like Robert Rich, Steve Roach, and Michael Stearns. All of their music is well made, but even though they were influenced and got their start from European synthesists, their music is distinctly American in style. The ambient music of the U.S. is great but after listening to Centrozoon, a duo presumably from Germany, I am reminded of why I enjoy this music in the first place. The music is fresh yet has an underscore of warped and mutating sounds made from vintage synthesizers. It's more than just a novelty sound. For it to be interesting, the sounds must go somewhere, and the here the music really conjures up a truly otherworldly feel. Having said this, the music is not of the exciting roller coaster variety. It lingers like some of the darker music by Harold Budd; in fact, one piece sounds like it could have been an outtake from Lovely Thunder. Take that lingering, icy drift and combine the slow alien machine bubblings of the modular synths and something quite fresh takes form.

lizbobo12

I made my first contact with Centrozoon's music when I met Markus Reuter and Bernhard Wöstheinrich, the band's founders, in January 2004. I had heard some of their music before through P2P sites but was rather confused by their complex rhythms and harmonies. Meeting them and talking to them about their music, though, provided me with some insight I needed to unlock the secrets to their instrumentals, which eventually led to Centrozoon becoming one of my all-time favorite bands. Perhaps I can give you some insight here and then take it from there to review Centrozoon's first album, "Blast". Markus and Bernhard have surprisingly different backgrounds. Markus studied guitar under Robert Fripp, has been around in the music scene for longer than he cares to acknowledge and is very methodical about his playing. Bernhard, on the other hand, has little formal musical training; his music is based on his intuition and can move into any one of many possible directions at any time. What makes the two great together is the clash between and interplay of formal methods and informal experimentation. Markus uses Bernhard's rapidly changing modifications to sound and rhythm of their improvisations to lay his own textures down to weave a tapestry that is as intriguing as it is beautiful, and Bernhard uses his hardly predictable synthesizer techniques to surprise Markus and lay some roadblocks in his path every once in a while (with good intentions, of course). Their music--all improvised--explores the infinite possibilities of harmonies and Moiré effects. "Blast", then, their first album, is a completely improvised collection of four pieces of ambient--some might call it outright spacey--electronica. Markus' soft and often fragile-sounding Warr guitar melodies weave their way through the epic pieces, as Bernhard's meditative synthesizer rhythms that never resemble dance beats but seem much more like mantras fade in and out of the audible space. The music never gets old or boring; each piece gradually changes as the loops play against and off each other in ever-changing combinations, and it is ultimately rewarding to trace the evolution of rhythms and harmonic textures through the hour-long album. Because I have already spent much time reviewing the nature of the music here, I think a track-by-track review is obsolete and perhaps also inappropriate; the album was designed to be listened all the way through, but if I were to recommend any single track, it would be "Sign". If I may be so bold, I'd say that the music on "Blast" would fit very well as a soundtrack to the new "Battlestar Galactica" series or even Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - A Space Odyssey". But, even without pictures, this album paints pictures in your mind. Listen to "Blast" alone, in the dark and with headphones and you will see for yourself. Recommended tracks: all, really; they're all integral to the album's theme.

Nadim S. Haque

This offering from Ian Boddy's DiN label continues in the form of the label's prior release, "Distant Rituals". This should come as no surprise, because both discs feature Markus Reuter on Warr guitar. Reuter's ethereal formless sounds waft across your listening space as you drift into orbit. This time around, Reuter is joined by Bernhard Wöstheinrich, who is credited with tonal and rhythmic modulations. Sometimes, these rhythms enhance the moody atmospherics fairly well, but other times I found them a distraction from the wonderful ambient tone set by Reuter. For example, "Sense" has Reuter's long, flowing guitar work, but it gets lost in an odd, warbling, repeating sequence. Worse, the loop doesn't significantly change over the course of the 13 minutes, except perhaps to get a bit louder and more insistent. Fortunately, the other three long tracks more than make up for this aberration, keeping the drifting ambience front and center. "Empire" starts off strong, in a dark and brooding sort of way. The low drones are quite ominous, and very tasty. No discernible beats emerge for over ten minutes, but when they do, the mechanical pulse doesn't seem too out of place, though I still would have preferred the straight ahead ambient approach, minus the dub influences. The rhythmic portion subsides, and the first track fades out in extremely leisurely fashion, leaving the listener uncertain when the last strains are replaced by silence. "Sign" starts off like the perfect accompaniment to a nostalgic but eerie sci-fi movie. Ambient atmospherics slowly rise and fall like breathing. This is a beautiful, beautiful track, with long flowing sweeps and layers. Bright synths or ambient processed guitar emerge, as well as some flutey synths which really add some nice colour. After the aforementioned "Sense," we come to "Blast," a strange title for this style of music. Soft and slow, the gentle soundscapes ebb and flow patiently, subtly, over the course of the disc's final 17 minutes. Here, the rhythms really do enhance, lending a frightening quality to the already dark mood as the intensity builds. Turn it up, turn out the lights, and duck under the covers.

2000 Phil Derby, Sequences Magazine

The duo of Centrozoon produce spacemusic difficult to quantify, trace or categorize; their distinguishing characteristic being improvisation. The debut CD Blast is brought to us through this popular method of self-expression. On this work Bernhard Woestheinrich realizes equally original and complicated synth tones that churn like an ocean underneath the cloud motion of Markus Reuter's treated Warr Guitar. Blast speaks to the listener with a musical vocabulary of contrasting harmonies and remarkable timbres. When a melody does surface, it is slow and deliberate, like a new character briefly entering a dream. Not entirely without rhythm, Blast occasionally presents us with some unusual patterns or loops - obviously created through Centrozoon's own creative devices. On Blast the duo have an album that is at once experimental, cerebral, spacious and engaging. Blast creates its own space, colored by the listener's imagination.

Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END