NOETICS

Noetics is the first eponymous studio release of a five-piece instrumental band that formed in Germany in 1997. They refer to their genre as Neo-Krautrock, but their musical style has elements of psychedelic, space, stoner, electronica, and funky jazz. Frequent festival performers, their live shows have been said to transform the audience into a "collective dance hypnosis" with support from many guest musicians, fire and light shows, and tight improvisations.

Eight tracks comprise this album, totaling nearly 43 minutes of music. As of this review, the entire album can be downloaded for free from their website (via Bandcamp).

1 Styrophoam Peanuts: Booming bass lines throughout provide a backdrop for the increasingly evocative, and sometimes frenetic, melody provide by synth, sax and guitars. The piece overall has elements of the Ozrics, especially in the background synth bubbles and other embellishments.

2 Shroomin': You are greeted with an abundance of VCO chirps a la Dr. Space (Oresund Space Collective), after which the track breaks into a head-nodding, funky groove of bass and guitar vamping punctuated with occasional lead flourishes on sax and keys. Not especially high energy, but enough to make you stop talking and look up from your drink whilst at the club with your friends.

3 Phallus Fiction: Another bluesy/funky groove with standout keys, guitar, and sax leads.

4 D-Dope (Remix): Spacey synths of the Ozrics, but with an Art of Noise percussive background. Like many remixes, it bears little resemblance to the original (track 7). A little too repetitious and uninspiring, for my tastes. Not bad, mind you, just out of place compared to the feel of the rest of the album.

5 Solid Fluid: Standout sax work in the latter half is the key notable feature of this otherwise peppery sausage.

6 Wolfi's Dream: The first 2/3rds of this track features really dreamy, spacey didgeridoo work by guest musician Ansgar Stein. I'm carried away on a peyote-induced aborigine vision quest, if there is such a thing. The latter part of the track completely shifts gears into an up-tempo rhythm reminiscent of early Ozric Tentacles. Unfortunately, it woke me up from my Wolfi's Dream and dumped me into the middle of rush-hour traffic.

7 D-Dope: This piece should clearly stimulate your primary motor cortex. Turn it up loud, then groove to the funky bass lines and leads by sax and synth. I'm transported to stand-up front-row festival territory with this one. I can only imagine the live, improvisational riffs that the band cooks up for this number!

8 Shroomin' (Backflash Remix): To me, this track strongly reminds me of something by Art of Noise on "The Drum and Bass Collection". Somewhat minimalistic, the up-tempo percussion keeps the piece moving forward, while the bass line provides a good test of the low-end bass response of your audio system, especially if you want to see the window panes vibrating.