Fracture (2007). Ian Boddy & Mark Shreeve have been at the centre of the UK Electronic Music scene since the late seventies and have known each other since they both appeared at the very first UK Electronica festival in 1983. "Fracture" is ARC's fifth album release and their fourth on the DiN label. It features their fabled retro style sequencing, courtesy of Shreeve's giant Moog modular system, coupled with a heady mix of quirky melodic lines and spacy atmospheres. The album is wholly instrumental and the first four tracks constantly morph and evolve with a set of chilled out grooves and sublime melodic themes. The fifth track, "Rapture", is an epic in every sense. Nearly 23 minutes in length it features a central, pounding sequencer riff section cocooned within truly awe inspiring deep space ambiences for a truly memorable track…

Jim Kirkwood has been writing Electronic Music since the late 1980's when he stepped back from fronting a black metal band to explore a solo career in instrumental music. He has his own unique style of Gothic EM which moves easily between huge symphonic slabs of music, dark ambience and sequencer driven soundscapes. The music itself, inspired by Gothic and Symphonic Rock and Berlin School Electronica, is quite often a CD in length, moves and shifts in tempo and mood, sometimes dark and sombre, sometimes ethereal and melodic, yet the whole gels perfectly into a single experience that grips the imagination and brings you into a world of dark and exciting beauty.

Nowadays, the warm tones of a Berlin School EM style becomes more and more flooded in an enormous musical cornucopia where technologies and numeric (digital) equipments strip a bit the nobility of this art finely exploited in the 70's by artists innovative and extremely creative such as Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese and his cult band Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre as well as Ashra Temple. Today, artists like Ian Boddy, Mark Shreeve, Remy, Marcel Engles, Gert Emmens, Mario Schonwalder and many more are still exploiting this sonority of former days, but with a mixture of new technologies, creating hybrid sonority where soft steams of a retro Berlin School are next to a more technical, more updated tone…

Synthetic Block (1998). Jonathan Block records as Synthetic Block. Synthetic Block is also the title of his debut release. He combines sequences and atmospheres to create little pockets of energy. It is all very tidy and systematic. Block sets his compositions with right angles and exact circles. He puts square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. The scientific approach, while it seems harsh, works well for Block. The atmospheres are gentle and warm. The soundscapes are friendly and inviting. This is a very nice debut. It will appeal to fans of Ron Boots, Dave Fulton, and Paul Ellis…

Anthony Rother - Elixir of Life (2003) & Anthony Rother - Magic Diner (2003).
Anthony Rother is an electro-techno producer from Germany who rose to prominence in the mid-'90s on the label Kanzleramt before founding numerous labels of his own, most notably Psi49net and Datapunk. Influenced primarily by Kraftwerk and Detroit techno, Rother was born on April 29, 1972, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Rother's electro sound ("Simulationszeitalter", "Hacker") is characterized by repetitive machine-like beats, robotic, vocoder-driven vocals, melancholy, futuristic mood and lyrics that often deal with the consequences of technological progress, the relationship between humans and machines, and the role of computers in society. In addition to electro, Rother also composes dark ambient music ("Elixir of Life", "Art Is a Technology").

Christian Richet is a French keyboard player inspired by 70's electronic music. Richet has been active since late 80's and has regularly released albums on the Musea label.

Matzumi (Kathrin Manz): this is monumental symphonic-electronic music, accompanied by her unmistakable singing voice.
Sometimes (2009). Electronica full of emotions, feelings set to music, never leaving you impassive but taking you on an intriguing journey across a sometimes unexplored, sometimes strangely familiar region - Matzumi attracts, captures, enchants, touches. Is 'Sometimes' a concept album? By any means, each track bares a motive, an individual experience, a stage in the artist's life, granting deep insights into a fragile but nevertheless stable construct of feelings - self-contained and keeping in touch with the more profane areas of life. 'Sometimes' is Matzumi, Matzumi is 'Sometimes'…

This UK EM duo is bound to set the scene on fire with their debut disc. Fans of mid 1970s Tangerine Dream will love the pulsing sequences and dense Mellotron which harkens back beautifully to Phaedra and Rubycon. Composed of four extended excursions, each track is a veritable cornucopia of rhythms, flowing Mellotron backdrops and various space plucks and laser flashes of effectual synthetics. The album is not just a TD copy, but uniquely original in its own right.

Emmens & Heij team up for a fourth time on Silent Witnesses of Industrial Landscapes, and they just keep the Berlin train rolling right along. Fans of retro EM should once again be in analog heaven. As usual, this is improv-based synthesizer music with an equipment list a mile long.

This work by Hemisphere is a beautiful space odyssey based on the use of synthesizers, ideal to let imagination soar through unearthly worlds. A general trait of the album is the fact that the music happens to be very intense, vital, as if reflecting strong emotions. The 11 pieces included in this release have a melodic cosmic style with some Atmospheric Pop touches. The latter are basically in the rhythms. The melodies present a certain romantic character, with slight symphonic traits. Perhaps the most remarkable theme is "Night of the Living Machine", in which the melodic grandeur of Hemisphere is strongly present.

Gert has made an epic movie score that only needs a movie to complete it. Shorter tracks, but man, are they alive! An awesome release.
Gert Emmens is a very prolific and praised Dutch electronic music musician. At a very young age he got classical training on drums and keyboards. During the Seventies Gert started making his own compositions (Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode) and drumming in bands, mainly prog, rock and fusion. In the Eighties he played keyboards in some bands and in 1995 Gert released his first album entitled "Light The Light", a blend of pop, fusion, funk and electro…

By combining elements from Ambient, Atmospheric Pop, Synth-Pop, Techno and Trance, Hemisphere create compositions where the melodies of a sensual, romantic hue, not lacking in mystery, have an important role. The emotional air of the music is emphasized by the warm textures of the synthesizers. The rhythms, of a rather slow nature, yet often powerful, complex and with an important percussive component, complement the basic approach of this album.

10th album for an incredible deep ambient-electronic trip by Ralf Knappe-Heinbockel and Thorsten Reinhardt. Their music is so various and intense, warm and rich of atmosphere, that the listener is among different realities of sounds and effects… Passages so dark and slow, for then to show a track full of rhythm and magic. Their imaginations goes ahead from "Point One" to "Point Fourteen", giving deep vibrations in the air, and continues even when music is finished. In all these tracks Hemisphere show their different faces. An album really great, all to discover till the last note. Composed between 1995 and 2001, it was recorded in 2002.

For this album Ralf Knappe-Heinbockel heads for more darker territory. "Intruders" presents a more darker side of his Hemisphere's music, for which Ron Boots constructed some nice soundeffects and enviRONmentals to connect most of the tracks with eachother. An album which will do late at night.

A superb combination at this live event, held 1991 in Cologne. The two musicians joined their forces to create an outstanding work of Berlin School / rhythm and drum music. 3 long pieces show a good expresion of the evening. Overall, a synth album with plenty of live atmosphere, an attractive and unusual emphasis on live drums, and involving variations from abstract to highly integrated sounds.