Artist: Der Spyra
P: 2018
Spyra’s new album DUNST is the direct successor of his 2014 studio album STAUB, which found critical acclaim for bringing new impulses for the ancient art of Berlin School Sequenzermusik.
While STAUB was severely reduced to the maxim of minimalist sequences, recorded as one shot studio sessions without any overdubs, DUNST welcomes the listener with a more lush arrangement of analogue sound-spheres, combined with deep drones and slow beats! - Spyra even allows himself again to partly spoil his audiences’ ears with Solina strings, cosmic noises and solo Synth melodies, but he is not denying the underlying principle, that the flow of such music cannot be fully composed, but can only develop within the inherent process of playing it … while being played by it !
“Why are KS’ and TD’s albums from the 70s so outstanding, so unique and pathbreaking, also for nowadays’ producers and fans of Electronic Music?”, Spyra asks, and, without hesitating, comes out with his own explanation: “ …it is mainly because they allowed themselves to float and drift within their self-created ocean of sound! - No matter if they played live or in the studio, their most epic pieces seem to be born, growing and maturing nearly effortlessly over time, like a beautiful garden of sound growing on a gigantic barge, which is drifting down an endless river… ”
As we all know, Spyra doesn’t simply try to copy 70’s style EM, but has continuously worked on and developed his own unique style, so it might rather sound as an understatement, when he continues “… in order to create your own a sonic garden, you shouldn’t try acting God, but rather try and become a mere gardener: Throw out your seeds in the right places, water and cultivate your saplings, watch them grow, and only every now and then cut some branch or pluck out some bad weeds. You must train in self-composure in order to become a good composer (of EM)!”
So, if you appreciate electronic music from the 70s, but are willing to accept that time has moved onward since then, you might quite likely feel attracted to Spyra’s newest album DUNST, which offers you a similar flow, but at the same time an elegant, cool and modern approach hardly to be found anywhere else on this Planet.
