Label: Type Records Catalog#: TYPE047V Release date: Apr-21-2009 Style: Ambient / Experimental
It`s hard to believe that five years
have passed since the release of `Album`, Andreas Tilliander`s first
outing on the Type label. `Album` marked the final stage in Andreas`s
development as a `laptop` artist and since then he has collected
synthesizer upon synthesizer and enough tape to make the boys in Berlin
jealous. Ditching the zeroes and ones, Andreas set about piecing
together a follow-up to `Album` and constructing it entirely in the
analogue realm; the warming hiss of tape, the decomposing buzz of a
monosynth and the nostalgic twitch of the Roland TB303. There might
be a love of all things `Kosmische` once more, but it would be facile
to label `Persona` as such. Sure Andreas has heard his fair share of
Cluster and Harmonia records, but his sound is just as rooted in
psychedelic rock and even Basic Channel-era dub techno as Germanic
ambience. Just listen to the thick, pulsating ode to Spacemen 3
`Oscillations and Tremolo` and you quickly realise that you are not
merely listening to `another` synthesizer album. Half-heard rhythms and
familiar TB303 bass pulses drag us in and out of a hinted-at Basic
Channel-axis production on `Valla Torg Kraut` while a fairground jangle
drives us through `Ode to the Ode to the Street Hassle`. Something in
there is blissful, almost beautiful, but it is hidden below thick
layers of tape hiss and crumbling circuit boards. `Persona` is a
mature, confident and engaging experience - the product of a veteran
electronic musician producing music that comes naturally to him. As the
Ingmar Bergman film of the same name suggests, it might be Andreas
Tilliander`s most revealing record to date. A stunning collection of
modern electronic music.