ZONING (OST)

"Zoning" is a bit of an oddball in the TD canon. A soundtrack album that's neither a proper soundtrack album nor,strictly speaking,a TD album. This can more correctly be termed an Edgar Froese solo album "in disguise". Jerome Froese,his son and musical partner in TD since 1990, only appears on two of the 13 tracks on "Zoning",the rest are composed and performed by Edgar alone. And the solo connotations don't end there. At least one of the tracks, "Eyewitness News",also appears on a "proper" Edgar Froese solo album,the double semi- compilation album "Beyond The Storm" under a different title and if my memory serves me right it also turns up on the "Ambient Highway" albums. And "Zoning" definitely has the same feel to it that "Beyond The Storm" does and the same instrumentation and production and it was recorded in 1994/95 and released in 96 while "Beyond..." was released in 95 so it's fairly obvious that soundtrack work and solo work merged in this period for Edgar which is good news for TD fans since that means that although this is billed as a soundtrack album,it sounds just like a proper Edgar Froese solo album. This is not one of those typical feature film soundtracks of TD's,halfbaked,by the numbers,knocked out in an afternoon,affairs,but can be said to belong to the kind of music TD,and Edgar solo,have done on their "real" albums over the last decade. The two most TD like tracks are obviously the two where Jerome participates,"The Conspiracy" and "Missing Link". The former sounds a lot like "Treasure Of Innocence" from the "220 Volt" album,released in 92, and could well be a "leftover" from studio sessions from that period. It has a huge sound with massive drums and a strong melody while "Missing Link" has a pronounced techno flavour to it and would not have been out of place on the first "Dream Mixes" album which was also released during this period. These are the two outstanding pieces on "Zoning" but the rest are no slouches either. As already stated,the rest of the album is composed and performed by Edgar and it bears all the hallmarks of his solo recordings from the period. Lush,dreamy almost new age-ish soundscapes with the odd discordant note and phrase here and there to create effective light/dark contrasts,this is Edgar Froese not at his "Epsilon In Malaysian Pale" and "Stuntman" best,but still in pretty good form and should appeal to anyone who likes the "Beyond The Storm" and "Ambient Highway" albums.