Paul Ellis + Jared White - Unbroken Spirit

Artist: Stefan Erbe
P: 2025
Erbe's third multimedia story about his android protagonist GENE strives for perfection on three different levels. Whether it's the music, the visual images or the story itself, all elements share a common intuition and ask the same question: when is something really perfect?
As in the previous story from 2023, Erbe blends the music with self-designed visuals and once again presents a complex and AI-generated universe of future thoughts and emotional developments of synthetic characters facing their own contradictions and moral choices. Of course, this theme is not entirely new, but Erbe presents it in a very special way. Music, images and story form a unity that has never been seen before. On the one hand, you get the feeling that Erbe's musical ideas are clear to decipher and that you can completely immerse yourself in the presentation of the story.
Nevertheless, he remains vague in his descriptions and leaves visitors plenty of scope for their own interpretations. No detail reveals the final meaning, but offers a variable motivation for the personal point of view.
Of course, the music on the current album also works excellently without the concert images. This time, the 12 tracks manage without additional vocals and atmospheric narrative elements and once again convey a narrative style that comes to a close in a spectacular finale.
The music therefore does not follow on from the concept of the previous album, but once again opens up a completely new chapter of unheard musical elements, embedded in Erbe's unmistakable sound of sequenced melodic structures, the deeply interwoven drum textures and his always very changeable sound aesthetics. However, Stefan Erbe remains true to himself in one thing. His great art of creating a 65-minute arc of suspense that fits almost every BPM category is a key element of his success over the last three decades.
While Stefan Erbe categorized the previous GENESYS23 album as “Eletronical”, his current concept should perhaps be described as “Imagical”.
Whatever a fitting description might be, Stefan Erbe is inexorably following the path of change and pursuing his own kind of hoped-for musical perfection with the album Metamorphosys. Perhaps even that of producing a final album at some point and being able to say that it simply can't get any better. But this misconception is probably the perfect reason to just keep going and never end with the pursuit of musical perfection.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2011
From Out Of The Vast Comes Nearness, Paul Ellis’ latest album of new music, is a purely electronic expression of five long-form pieces that blend ambient sound design with rhythmic electronics, recalling the classic works of genre masters like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze or Vangelis; but with a restrained modern air.
With a mixture of synthesized sonics, both melodic and cerebral, the music brings to mind the unfolding expanse of the cosmos, stated with a graceful patience that propels the steadily evolving, constantly moving synthscapes to a highly personal level.
Fans of Paul’s style will recognize his signature immediately, and while this new work retains familiar elements from his earlier releases, it is perhaps his most reflective album to date.
Paul’s usual high production standard is maintained here, and his talent for sound design and the careful orchestration of each piece makes every element of the mix sit perfectly in place with an attention to detail that draws us closer with each listen.
From Out Of The Vast Comes Nearness is packaged in a dual gatefold presentation, in the tradition of the vinyl record jacket, with beautiful photography from master artist Pablo Magne, whose visual style will be familiar to fans of Paul’s other works such as Silent Conversations or Echo System.

Artist: Paul Ellis
P: 2020
For me this album explores both my life in an urban setting, the bustling city and the time I spend hiking in the forests.
Here in the Pacific Northwest there are a lot of rainforests so I go hiking for balance... to breathe in the fresh air and get away from the neurosis of the city.
At the same time I have to admit that I love aspects of living in the city... The energy and the progress, the ideas and resources....I seem to need both, so the album is sort of an exploration between this strange dichotomy.
Also noticing as I emerge from the forests where the pavement begins...
Paul Ellis