ONE

This album, although released officially in 2010, was recorded by Fred Schendel and Steve Babb in 1991.and 1992, before the first official Glass Hammer release, "Jouney Of The Dunaden". Unlike all of the following Glass Hammer albums, these songs were performed by only the core duo of the band (and released on cassette at the time).

The pieces are all relatively short (only a handful venture past the four minute mark), and as such do not contain much of the thematic exploration that the duo would perform on albums with a full band. What each song seems to do is set the tone very quickly, play some melodic lines on a synth or guitar, perhaps a short solo, and end. But with this succinctness, only a few tracks sound unfinished or abrupt.

So while this bit of electronica may not be everyone's cup of tea, I find it more enjoyable than many of the minimalistic synth bands (like Kraftwerk), or even most of Tangerine Dream's post-seventies output.