MASTERS OF CONFUSION (WITH KUMO)

This album takes a quite different direction from most of Irmin's catalogue up to now. The Toy Planet album is probably the closest out of those he had done so far. Instead of the usual guest musicians, this one is a collaboration with Kumo alias Jono Podmore, who does electronics here, and the album has a far more electronic character than the previous ones. It is a very rhythm oriented album, and Kumo's technoid rhythms will take some getting used to for prog listeners who are used to real drummers and the likes of Jaki Liebezeit and Trilok Gurtu on Irmin's previous albums.

The electronic rhythms go through almost all the album dominantly, some of them are straight 4/4, but there are some more subtle ones thrown in. Fledermenschen is particularly fascinating in this respect with some polyrhythmic experiments, and is actually my favourite track. The second strong element on most tracks is Irmin's piano, sometimes played in a sharp rhythmic staccato manner. Elsewhere, in Las Blumas del Buho the dramatic piano takes its inspiration from Latin America; this one reminds me of some of the longer piano driven pieces on earlier albums. And then there is synthesizer and electronic sounds. In fact, despite the lack of other instruments, the sound world created here is pretty rich, there are also more lyrical and some mysterious moments, and there's something new to discover in every track, even though there is the usual recycling of the odd motif from earlier albums, most clearly in Gentle into that Night. I wonder whether Irmin intends this to be something of his trademark as this goes through more or less his whole catalogue.

All in all there is quite some strong material here and I find the overall approach quite fascinating. The smooth sound and the routine approach of the two professional composers may distract a bit from how much is hidden here, as one can listen fairly easily through the whole album superficially, sticking to the rhythmic surface, in which case it may not make that much of an impression. Anyway, this is a very original album and worth exploring. 4.0 stars.