EARTHSTAR

Earthstar, from Utica, New York was one of the rare examples of Berlin School of Electronic Music at the end of the '70s (Michael Garrison, based out of the very unlikely Bend, Oregon, was another example). In 1978 they released Salterbarty Tales which was released on Moontower out of Nashville, a place very well known for country music, but hardly the place to release albums by electronic acts. So many people were completely unaware of Salterbarty Tales due to its rarity, so most assume French Skyline was their debut. French Skyline certainly helped Earthstar get much more recognition, so naturally it's the Sky label albums that are obviously much easier to get a hold of than Salterbury Tales. Craig Wuest was the leader of this group, and he and the band moved to Germany and apparently wanted to get a deal with Innovative Communications, Schulze's label, but instead Sky took on their offer. Still Schulze helped by co-producing along with Wuest. Even part of this album was recorded at IC Studios (side two was recorded in France, hence the French Skyline title). "Latin Sires for the Wall" shows right away the heavy Schulze- influence, so much so that's why many assumed Earthstar were German and not American. It's full of tron choir, sounds exactly like Schulze's own Mk. V tron choirs you hear on the likes of Mirage or the Body Love albums, I wouldn't doubt if Wuest was using Schulze's machine here. He also uses so many keyboards that's easy to get lost. He, outside of Rick Wakeman, was one of the few artists to ever record with the 8-track-driven Birotron (Wakeman helped develop the machine). "Splendored Skies and Angles" and of course "French Skyline Suite" was recorded in France and pretty much sticks close to the Schulze template. I have to say it's a nice album worth hearing, but on the other hand, it doesn't add anything new to the table (aside from a small amount of sitar) you hadn't already heard with Berlin School electronic music. But it's still very good still the same, so even if it don't give out a lot of surprises, it's still very much worth owning due to it being a rather solid album.