AMMERLAND

There are two scenarios how the ''Ammerland'' album came up.First one says that Eduard Schicke had already parted ways with Fuehrs and Froehling, even if a third studio album by SFF had been recorded but not yet released.Second one appears Schicke to be still involved with SFF, but Fuehrs and Froehling had found time to create their own work in absence of drums and ''Ammerland'' was the fruit of their collaboration.One way or another this album marked the first effort of Fuehrs and Froehling as a duo, released in 1978 on Brain. Heinz Froehling appears to handle only acoustic/classical guitars, while Gerd Fuehrs plays Mellotron, Moog synth and grand piano.

As expected this work is quite different from the album of Fuehrs and Froehling with SFF, even if it has a strong symphonic flavor.Armored only with a guitar and some keyboards they leave SFF's powerful, symphonic textures for good to deliver dreamy, sensitive and very mellow instrumental music, which flirts with New Age and tends to be pretty minimalistic.First side actually sounds very one-dimensional, where the talent of Froehling is much highlighted and Fuehrs remaining in the background.So this is dedicated to classical guitar-drenched soundscapes with basically some nervous keyboard notes performed by Fuehrs.The exception comes from the short title-track, which contains some beautiful Mellotron waves next to atmospheric synths and the classical guitar alternating between cinematic and more sweet textures, while ''Circles'' has slightly more pronounced keyboard flavors in the vein of TONY BANKS, but even so it sounds pretty hypnotic.''Every land tells a story'' clocks at 14 minutes and seems to be not only the centerpiece of the flipside but of the whole album as well.This comes closer to SFF's classic works, switching from the melodic and ethereal lines to decent synth soloing and evident Classical vibes during the guitar parts, having a more balanced performance and sounding somewhere between SFF, MIKE OLDFIELD and STEVE HACKETT.The New Age atmosphere is still present and the absence of drums holds down the energy level, but this arrangement overall sounds charming and interesting.''Ammernoon'' will close the album in a spacey way with orchestral keyboards and cosmic synthesizers providing a not very familiar mood by Fuehrs and Froehling.

I would not recommend this work to fans of rich, progressive and intricate compositions, because it sounds rather hypnotic and extremely sophisticated.Basically the fan base should be New Age afficionados and lovers of minimalistic textures along the attempts of MIKE OLDFIELD.Rather dissapointing effort after the previous work of the duo with Schicke.