Burnt Friedman and
Atom™ are both very prolific
and talented musicians. Friedman
has released records with The Nu Dub Players on Stefan
Betke’s ~Scape, or under his Nonplace Urban Field,
Drome or Some More Crime guises, as well as Con Ritmo
last year, and Plays
Love Songs this year, both published on his
own Nonplace imprint. Atom™,
born Uwe Schmidt, is even more prolific, as he is credited
with over a hundred and fifty albums released under
various aliases, including Atom Heart, Lassique Benthaus
or Señor Coconut. He is also head of the Rather
Interesting label. Although both men lived only two
hundred kilometres apart in Germany, they met in the
crater of an extinct volcano in Australia. Soon, the
idea of working together flourished, and Flanger was
born.
For this third album, Flanger and Atom™
draw as much from their electronic past as from their
mutual love of avant-garde jazz forms. If, like its predecessors,
Templates and Midnight Sound, Outer
Space/Inner Space relies on artificial sounds and
effect, this time round, the duo also got on board live
musicians, recruited all over the world, to enhance their
compositions and explore new grounds. Tracks were programmed
by Friedman and Atom™,
with space for other instrumentists to insert some extra
elements and give a different twist to the album. Outer
Space/Inner Space is a record inhabited by the spirit
of free jazz, and the electronic distortions don’t alter
in any way the volatile character of the genre. The album
opens with a morphing synthesized voice layered over a
breackbeat/bip-bop inspired beat, before the title track
really kicks in, in a deluge of vibraphones, syncopated
pianos and saxophones. This constant shift between atmosphere
progressively blurs the definite lines between electronic
and organic, to create a challenging soundscape. Percussions
are fierce, bass line groovy, rhythm patterns constantly
changing, and treatments applied with respect of the musical
canvas collected. The eight tracks included on Outer
Space/Inner Space explore a variety of grooves, from
the Latin inspired Unosietecero to the dirty
funk of Inner Spacesuite and the effervescent,
almost Squarepusher-esque
The Men Who Fell From Earth, but the duo always
manage to keep perfectly on track, never letting their
guard down once, and bringing together some magnificent
moments of flamboyant beauty.
With this step towards live music, Flanger open a whole
new horizon and create some intricate soundscapes, while
retaining an incredibly human feel. Outer Space/Inner
Space is innovative, clever and fresh.
4/5 |
