ExoLife is an album centered on both Terry Riley-esque minimalism and the sonic possibilities of a Eurorack modular system. Don't look for pads or keyboard melodies; there aren't any. All the music is created exclusively using sequencers. More precisely, it consists of improvisations on analog sequencers, left as is, but augmented with sonic manipulations created using Audacity to build different atmospheres for each track. Since the album's theme is life on other worlds, each track is named after an exoplanet that could potentially harbor distant life.
Although the basic principle is the same, i.e. no keyboard, only sequences embellished with echo, ExoLife has nothing to do musically with the very experimental Ars Modularis and the previous Cycles, Echoes & Geometry.
It's somewhat of a continuation of those two albums, but much gentler, calmer, and more meditative. That's not to say that nothing happens during the album's six tracks. On the contrary. But you have to listen closely and immerse yourself in the atmospheres to appreciate the abundance of continuous micro-evolutions.
Can we still talk about the Berlin School in relation to ExoLife? Frankly, I don't know. Let's just say that, even though ExoLife is completely different from Zeit, I thought a lot about that Tangerine Dream album while making ExoLife. I wanted it to be imbued with that spacey, mysterious, and timeless spirit.
