ELEVEN YEARS INNERSPACE

New music from Holger Czukay at last! Or is it? Unfortunately neither the label nor Holger himself have cared about giving the fan much useful information about this. When was it done? Who apart from Holger himself was involved in it? We don't know and the cover (which looks like it took no more than 10 minutes to make) won't tell.

I was in doubt about whether I should classify this as compilation/boxset or as regular release; I'm not totally sure about the definitions either. These are remixes of existing material. The remixes themselves are mostly pretty innovative. They, or at least some of them, may have been done pretty recently, in which case I arguably should have classified this as regular studio album. The title suggest that they were done over 11 years but which? 2004-2014? It's a mystery. But it's material that in this state you haven't heard yet elsewhere.

Two of the six remixes are pretty close to what is already available. Secret of my Life is based on Rhythms of a Secret Life from Moving Pictures, and My Can Axis is based on material from Canaxis 5, and both of these vary the original material little. They seem like compressed miniature versions of the original tracks.

The other four tracks have much more of an existence independently of the original material that went into them, and are much more interesting. On "In-Between" and "A Maiden's Dream" sampled classical music features quite prominently (orchestral on In-Between, a string quartet on A Maiden's Dream). This is coupled with some sound experiments and snippets from previous work. The marriage between these elements doesn't work 100% without frictions but makes for a fascinating experience. We can nicely speculate about the meaning of this collage; in what sense are Holger's sounds a comment on the classical material? Is it an echo from the past, or is it rather the thing to survive in a darker future in which it still has the power to shape the then contemporary noises?

"My Can Revolt" uses material from Can, which means that we listen to a fast pulsating instrumental by Schmidt/Liebezeit/Karoli with some Suzuki voice appearing in the second half. I believe that this has been pieced together in a quite new way, possibly with some added guitar or other trickery. It is pretty intense and the fastest and loudest thing on this album. Can fans will probably like this. I remember that Holger did something like this when I saw him in the Roundhouse in 2009.

"Breathtaking" reminds me of the "21st Century" album, it is rather free form, meditative and fairly slow, with some dreamy U-She vocals.

Overall the listener gets quite a bit of interesting and fascinating new material, so this is certainly a worthwhile acquisition. The album is somewhat uneven though, and as I have Canaxis 5 and Moving Pictures already, I don't get much from the two tracks that are made of those albums (if you don't have Canaxis 5 and Moving Pictures, get them before this one, they are truly great). The remaining four tracks may well be worth four or even five stars if they stand the test of time (I'm not going to wait 20 years before I review this), but still currently I give the album 3 stars, with annoyance about the lack of information perhaps playing a role here.