VISIONS OF DUNE

ZED is a one shot electronic project from Bernard Szajner, a French musician that has a foot down in electronic as much as in avant garde. It connects the music to Heldon and Wakhevitsch rather then to Schulze or Tangerine Dream. As the title suggests, this album means to evoke some scenes, settings and characters from Herbert's Dune SF epic.

After the nicely textured one chord cosmics of the opener 'Dune', the album develops a more Zeuhlian vibe in the short rhythmically droning pieces that follow it. The synths grow increasingly dissonant and chaotic. 'Sardaukar' concludes this most interesting opening section. 'Bene Gesserit' and 'Shai Hulud' drop the drums in favor of minimalistic pulses adorned with plenty of non-melodic buzzing synth and bleeps. The album drops off my radar with the 'Fremen' and 'Harkonnen' pieces which sound dated and amateur with the overabundant effects. The album is from 1979 and introduces those cold digital synth sounds that also Schulze would soon be using. It marks a turning point in synth music and from here on electronic music stopped capturing the mystery and enigma of the analogue years that preceded. The last 20 minutes drop to a level of cheep sounding effects and failed avant garde aspirations.

There are some really exciting moments here but most of the time it sounds like a couple of kids having fun in a Luna park, or worse, abusing their big brother's synth apparatus. No, I won't buy into this, there's a reason why some music doesn't break through.