PETE NAMLOOK & K. SCHULZE: THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOOG VII

I decided to check out The Dark Side Of The Moog VII after being left kind of cold with Pete Namlook's other material, hoping that the presence of the wonderful Klaus Schulze would warm up the sound. It turns out that I was right. This album is mostly trance-like ambient, not unlike Namlook's other releases that I've heard, but with spacey sounds and synthesizer melodies that sound uniquely Schulze-esque. Still, though, I'm not entirely convinced. The dancy, upbeat portions of this album just isn't something that I have any interest in, personally. Fortunately, only about 14 minutes of this album consists of said danciness, and the rest is dreamy, spacey, airy, floating ambience with synthesized space sounds and an atmosphere full of beautifully light drones. Unfortunately, this album sounds more like Namlook's best than Schulze's best. I'm not really convinced that this is an entirely great album, but considering that Schulze's solo material released at about the same time period as this isn't very satisfying at all, this served as great filler material before Schulze later released the fantastic Kontinuum.

This definitely sounds like a collaboration between Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze, but seems most of all to be a Pete Namlook album. If you're a big Namlook fan, then this should be on your list of albums to own. If you're a big Schulze fan, you should just listen to Mirage again.