300 003

First I'll say what many may already know, that Loom is* a Tangerine Dream spinoff, comprised of Robert Waters (Wässer) and ex-TD members Johannes Schmoelling and Jerome Froese. According to discogs.com, only five hundred copies were manufactured of the 300 003 CD, which was issued by Froese's Moonpop label. It is available for download on itunes.com and probably via other outlets as well.

I'm by no means familiar with the complete TD oeuvre, but this certainly seems like a logical extension of the group's post-1973 work. Whereas the group's earliest compositions were at times amorphic, often frenetic, and occasionally avant-garde, 300 003 is anything but.

I know it's a cliché, but most of 300 003 strikes me as having been stitched together from Apple Loops during someone's lunch break. If there's an exception, it's the section in the middle of "Time Scanner" (from 2:30 to 3:30) which sounds like a 1990s remake of a 1980s action-movie soundtrack theme, and it's the only part of the EP with much character. The first cut, "Below the Playfield," is inoffensive background music, perhaps suited to an online slide show whose content isn't known in advance, or to a generic DVD menu; and "Bit Byter" is an anonymous new-age piece, complete with faux choir. Slowed down a bit, "Bit Byter" could be developed into a decent Enya song.

Maybe that's my issue with 300 003: to me it's a handful of foundations waiting for something to be built upon them, or maybe three portions of unbaked dough. Now don't get me wrong - - progressive-electronic music needn't be filigreed architecture or fancy pastry to interest me; I count ex-TD member Klaus Schulze's Mirage among the very best of the subgenre. But whereas the sixteen-minute 300 003 explores more musical landscape than both half-hour-long tracks on Mirage combined, Schulze is able to achieve a less-is-more aesthetic via minute variations over those extended runtimes. There's little reason to suspect Loom approached 300 003 from that frame of reference.

Maybe Loom will regroup at some point and expand parts or all of this EP into an album-length work - - and maybe then 300 003 will be an interesting germ.

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*or perhaps was - - this 2016 EP was the group's last release, as far as I know. And the group's facebook page was last updated in June 2017.