COTTONWOODHILL

I'm still trying to look for special aspects of Krautrock to really hold on to this sector sentimentally in some way. This initial album from the Swiss has its charm but you can tell that their sound has not yet matured and the band is still searching for it.

On the opening tracks "Black Sand" and "Places of Light" much of the fun is scattered, with almost no vocal intervention. From the outset it can be inferred that this is and will be a very electronic album despite its classical instruments (which seem to play in the background anyway and get overshadowed by the electronic sounds).

Almost the entire remainder of the album is taken up by an extended and quirky 26-minute song divided into three parts and titled with the band's name. The definitive voice that seals the extravagant style of this song belongs to Dawn Muir, who plays an experimental and risky role by singing without singing: She talks, she sobs, she moans, she rages, but she doesn't sing! Perhaps this has influenced Irene Papas and Aphrodite's Child to create the very strange song "Infinity (symbol)". The instrumentation of the song is very poor: Despite the unrelenting Krautrock characteristic based on eternal extensions, it is a tedious riff that fails to create the atmosphere it is meant to create.

3 stars seems to me a fair score for the debut album of this band that on their next album would reach a higher level.