HEARTS OF SPACE (WITH PASCAL F.E.O.S.)

Namlook's discography is huge and intimidating, and because it covers a lot of different styles, your discovery of this artist might be a bit of a bumpy ride. Luckily it comes with a key to crack the code! Many of the releases on Namlook's Fax label come with album art consisting of 2 spheres, each with its own color. The biggest sphere indicates the main style, the smaller sphere the secondary style. Unfortunately, the meaning of each color can differ depending on the specific project/series.

So, before I get entirely tangled up in this maze I'll just let my ears do the talking, and what I hear on this album is a mix of trance, ambient and house. There are a couple of tracks without beats, and those betray Namlook's fascination for Tangerine Dream's 70s work. For example '70's Beauty' and 'Sensuality' are short moody pieces that would fit seamlessly on TD's 'Force Majeure'.

But 70's fans will be in for a shock with the second track, its 'numbing' 4/4 house beat will provoke immediate revulsion. And it will only get worse once the simple minimalistic melody joins after one minute. You got it, this is the kind of stuff you could hear in clubs in the 90's.

The cause of the dual nature of this album is of course that this is one of the cooperations that Namlook did with DJs in 1993. Frankly, I find it hard to spot Namlook's contribution in the techno material, which is my major gripe with this release. The quality of the techno tracks is also very uneven. 'Drawn to The Thrill' and 'Supervision' stand out but the remainder is fairly unremarkable.

Prog fans and lovers of Prog Electronic are well-advised to stat miles away from this album. It's a trance/techno/house album, that should be warning enough. It isn't a bad release though, just a bit average generally. Namlook has better techno projects.