Recent Purchases

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

 Mascodagama wrote:

<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> 
 Guldbamsen wrote:

Oh and yet another 'what?!?!?!': remixes ? <div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Like techno?
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Well, kinda...<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Full skinny on the box contents: you get the five studio albums, the 'Erholung' live album with two additional tracks including a 26-minute odyssey, another CD of a concert from 1976 consisting of two 40-minute trips (this is a real gem) and three CDs assembled by Reichel from AR&M material retrospectively. These are:<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">“Transformation”:  Made by AR in 1996 as part of his initial exploration of digital technology, and actually a pretty respectable mid-nineties ambient / chillout album. If it had been released at the time it could have sat quite happily on my shelf between FSOL and Little Axe (if you remember them!). He didn't release it then as he’d decided that you can only be one thing at one time (funny story in the book about the flack he'd recently got from fans of his rock singer stuff when he authorised the CD reissue of Grune Reise...).<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">“14 Pieces for Guitar and Echo Chamber”:  AR found a box of tapes when looking for additional material that turned out to be unaccompanied echo guitar experiments he'd laid down during the AR&M years. I think these have been edited by AR to make more coherent pieces and treatments applied in a few places. A bit to my surprise this is one of the best things in the box, quite mesmeric and compelling stuff.<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">“Virtual Journey”: a second CD of beat-orientated mixes made by AR for the box set. These are generally more minimal (largely just guitar and rhythm) and on the whole work pretty well, with a few tracks that I can see myself programming up regularly when I'm in the AR&M headspace. <div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">I guess the trancey and groove-driven nature of quite a lot of the original AR&M material lends itself better to this kind of treatment than most 70s rock/psych/prog. And AR hasn't made a fool of himself with these mixes - we're not talking about a Wishbone Ash Trance Visionary-style fiasco here, thankfully.<div ="yj6qo"="" style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">

I think you're right about that. The often simplistic and hypnotic drive of the old Krautrock motorik engine does seem to lend itself to more modern stuff like IDM and electronica. That is also why I dig Klaus Schulze's Moonlake and Franco Battiato's most recent homage to his early prog rock roots, Joe Patti's Experimental Group - both of which successfully merge the old school spirit with contemporary electronic music.
Problem here though is that I already own all A. R. & Machines studio albums...and it can get a little pricey having to buy every new boxset that comes along with previously unreleased material. Still....aaaaargghh!

That reminds me, I've still to hear the infamous Yes remixes. I figure most of the condescending reviews of it are written by elderly folks who haven't heard anything new since 'Video Killed The Radiostar'  

Edited by Guldbamsen - January 13 2018 at 05:31