HEAD VISIONS

3.5 stars. I'm really on the fence with this one. Germany's own Bernd Kistenmacher comes off as a disciple of Klaus Shulze, releasing this his debut in 1986. His music has been referred to as "spherical kosmische synthscapes". Spacey is the word. He would go on to release close to 20 albums over the years, and collaborate with Harald Grosskopf in the process. The man is legit. We get a 53 minute album here with three long tracks.

This is all electronics by the way. Including sequencers but they are either light, or mixed down. The production gets mentioned a lot by reviewers. It could have been a lot better. In fact the reason I'm still balancing myself on the fence with this one is that 25 minute opener called "Rucksturz" where it just didn't sound right to me after 2 spins. But after that I'm used to it. Still, that's half the album right there that I'm not "all in" on.

I've seen four different cover arts for this one and I prefer the original one that is not shown on the site here. I do like the spacey sounds of electronics over sequencers and this leans toward the spacey. I much prefer that second track "Quitting Time" over the opener. At 14 1/2 minutes this one changes slightly throughout. He keeps it interesting, including that more than slight change before 12 minutes. Soon it's back to spacey with the synths crying out like a guitar.

"La Tendresse" is the 13 minute closer, and it opens with spacey winds that are fairly brisk. They stop as we get some interesting sounds after 2 1/2 minutes. It's more aqua sounding after that, lets put it that way. It almost sounds like a fire crackling at one point. Like I said some interesting sounds on this record but at the same time this is very uniform sounding. Sounds like mellotron later but none is credited.

All titles were composed, performed and arranged by Bernd between April and July 1986. In the liner notes of the 2012 re-issue Kistenmacher suggests that this his first album was more than just a musical beginning, it helped him get through life. He calls this album a shore of an ocean, which asked him to embark on a great journey.