Two electronic giants converge to make unsettling contemporary electronica, their first in 35 years
7/10
For aficionados of electronic music from the annals of the '70s, Dieter Moebius and Asmus Tietchens are two names synonymous with taking their craft to the limits and touching down in the field labelled as "avant-garde". The former has spent most of his 30-year career with other musicians and bands including Cluster/Kluster, Harmonia, Liliental, Brian Eno and Conny Plank, while the latter has predominantly been a solo recording-artist, save for a short stint with Moebius in Cluster and Liliental, which is where the pair vowed to work together - little did they know that the days of Sky Records would be long gone by the time they booked up some studio-time and plugged in the first synth to compose this intriguing and unsettling clutch of instrumentals.
7/10
Fans of contemporary tech-noise, musique-concrete and the likes of Fennesz, Autechre or Blank Disco, will find solace in Moebius and Tietchens gritty layers of babbling electro-chatter and incessant glitches, particularly on the longer epic pieces such as "Kattrepel", a cochlea-piercing contender designed to frighten teenagers away from anti-social behaviour and "Lange Reihe" which folds distorted wails and embellishments, not unlike those employed by Holger Czukay, Bruce Gilbert or Jon Hassell on their more atmospheric collaborative releases during the '80s.
Much of the remainder busies itself with pounding crash-beats ("Grimm"), scratchy found-sounds ("Plan") or sinister threat - opening track "Cremon" sounds like something Ripley should be tracking evil-beasties to in Alien 6. While much of this music has a foothold in the late '70s period of Sky, Editions EG and a tentative elbow dunked in the trickey waters of glitch-period Warp and Planet Mu, Moebius and Tietchens have eyes on the here and now by refusing to buck to trends or dwell on the past, sticking instead with harsh, brittle and rewarding sound-sculptures that could soundtrack any exhibition in an East London gallery or a night-drive through Icelandic glaciers.