Lunz
Romantic and surreal - light and dark - an album of opposites attracts you like a moth to a flame.
After his eighth selbstportrait, Roedelius effectively retired from making solo albums and has since relied on duets and trios to keep the muse alive. One of his most productive collaborations has been with Iowa's Tim Story. Taking its title from a secluded lake in the Austrian Alps where the pair first met, Lunz mixes supple piano etudes with 240-volt ghost symphonies. To begin with the opening title track draws you in with its Alpine flower-like delicacy, reminding you how infectious pure melody can be. Then "Dew Climbs" loops soaring wide angle synth strings over a deep chasm of apocalyptic drones. As one metronomic track succeeds another, the tension climbs higher and higher still until the febrile pinging keys of "Wobbly Flu Twilight" topple you into cabin fever - like Harold Budd on speed, a sparse Zen-clarity fused with weird electronica. If at first listening, the mood appears New Age-y, repeat listening unveils the hidden detail beneath the surface.Lunz has its roots in Story's affections for the avant-romance of 1981's Lustwandel as he underscores Roedelius' tumbling piano arpeggios with quirky electronic life forms that take on a life of their own, like amoebic shapes or surreal flowers.
