Mario Schonwalder Hypnotic Beats (Reissue) Play Sample:   56K Dialup   Broadband   Download Sample:   500K   1.5Mb (Excerpt from track(s) 'A Dream Merely A Dream')

This is much more than a straight re-issue as one track has been extended and another replaced. Apparently this is how the album was originally intended to be. Soft cosmic pads and tinkling bell like percussion give 'Moogazyn' a very relaxed start. In the second minute a deep bass rhythm (that will test the speakers) starts up. It is relatively slow in pace but even so will get those ornaments shaking on the shelves. I could just hear a sequence starting to build low in the mix. Lead lines come and go but they are rather subtle, playing a supportive role to the rhythmic content. Some will find this track simply too repetitive but I found it, as the album title suggests, rather hypnotic but also powerful stuff.

Rhythms again feature prominently on 'A Dream, Merely a Dream'. This time they are of a more shuffling variety with supporting Shulzian type lead lines and occasional drum flourishes. There is quite a bit going on here if you take the time to listen carefully as the track slowly evolves. It is a wonderful piece which was mesmerizing in both rhythm and melodic departments. I played it three times before moving on to the next track! I did eventually make it as far as 'The Garden of Sanssouci'. This is the track, which has been extended. As I don't have the original I am not sure by how much but I suspect that as we are now pushing the new maximum running time of eighty minutes it is by quite a bit. It starts off slowly in atmospheric mode. Gradually a plucked string loop becomes more prominent then suddenly explodes! A slow melodic sequence / loop emerges from the aftermath and bounces along quite nicely, a meandering lead line soon falling into place around it. As with the opener it all becomes rather hypnotic until we return to swirling atmospherics and gently looping percussion in the ninth minute. A sequence emerges again a few minutes later, this time accompanied by the most strident lead so far.