Johannes Schmoelling Instant City

Schmoelling albums are just too infrequent and upon hearing that this one was to be completed as a brand new solo studio work l nearly fell off my chair with amazement. It may therefore come as no surprise that 'Instant City' for me has been the most eagerly awaited CD release of the year!!! Schmoelling's compositional skills really are second to none, with a back catalogue that should have us all pay homage to the man's genuine ability. However, Johannes really does seem to be his own worst critic and having already made the painful decision not to return to T.D. as a full time member, (post 'Kyoto') and stating that he had no intention of ever working with any electronic musicians either now or in the near future it seems even more surprising that Johannes should now have put together a new release. I've waited all year for this one; I can only hope that my patience is to be rewarded.

Having spent some considerable time back in Riet Studio Johannes has hammered and banged some new tracks into shape that will have you thinking you've just entered a time warp and been transported back to 1990!!! The spirit of the original 'Zoo of Tranquillity' and 'White Out' releases are in abundance here. The same compositional architecture and sound pallet purveys most all of the tracks on offer, so if all else fails this should still prove to be a familiar sounding crowd pleaser. Johannes twenty year solo career has been a laboured affair with older works either being recycled or revisited on more than one occasion,(his audio visual material accounting for approximately half his albums, note that 'Audio Art' is on the way). After 2003's patchy 'Recycle or Die' album, could 'Instant City' be the best Schmoelling album ever?

Having lived with the CD for a week or two now l've come up with the following:-

A reflective piano and strings movement opens the ball on track number one, 'Passing By'. A light more optimistic refrain displays real structure rather than some meandering tickling of the ivories. There's a strong hint of the past as Johannes gives just the briefest intimation of his older works with the odd snatched phrase and chords here and there just prior to a light sequence arriving. It's as the percussion arrives that you'll give a knod and a smile only to know that Johannes is back!!! We are now taken off on a nine minute voyage with this track that could have easily come from one of his albums of the late eighties. Flawless.

More memories of the past are sparked by the next piece, 'Giants out of the Fog',(7.03). A suitably odd beginning for an oddly named track, but its not long before the sequencers arrive. I'm thinking that this must be a track left off the 'White Out' album with a big reverberant brass lead soaring over the piece as all the percussive elements are assembled. One can only assume that Johannes has been off and dug out his sample sets from days gone by.

The five minute title track is upon us and l'm thinking Edgar Froeses 'Zoning' soundtrack as the piece surges forward at quite a pace with a fat analogue bass that just rips through the track adding to the sonic dynamic. 'Contemplative Clouds' is next up. With it's rather dubious New Agey sounding title this one see's a steady electric piano run lay the foundations for what becomes classic Schmoelling. It's a simplistic piece both in it's structure and instrumentation but manages to deliver its message easily with a hint of European folksiness. Not much happens over the seven and a half minute duration, but its time well spent. Time that just flies by, and that my friend is the genius of Schmoelling's work, to take a simple idea and not extend it, but to develop it!!! A tuneful melody arrives then subsides only to reappear once again with further variation on the theme, something he did time and again on 'Zoo of Tranquillity', as beautiful as it is brilliant.

'Joyful Solitude'(8.51), ha ha, do l hear Tangerine Dream ala Firestarter/ Legend? This is just the sort of quirky nonsense that Schmoelling put together with T.D. more than two decades ago. An odd little waltz of a tune that will stay with you long after the CD is over, (ah time to stop reading, go buy the CD you'll know what l mean once you've heard it!!!). Johannes must have realised he was slipping into a pure time warp and so takes the tune off at a tangent with a change of modus and time signature in the latter stages of the piece into an entertaining little slice of muzak, something l think only Johannes could get away with. Alittle misplaced, but then again we're halfway through the album and he hasn't put a foot wrong yet. It does lighten the mood and does at the very least show us that Mr. Schmoelling isn't taking all this music business too seriously!!

We get all contemporary with 'Rikscha Square'. The theme is a bit daytime TVish and dare l say pithy but injected with the sequencing and variation he almost makes this short one work.

We are however right back on track for the second half on the album as 'Viktoriapark'(4.26) definitely see's a return to that Zoo we call Tranquility. The sampling gets percussively strange and garbled, the timing very deliberate and the synthesis rather harsh behind a set of lead sounds that are paradoxically rather fluid. Again it's a track plucked straight out of the 1987 mould. It cycles around and doesn't really go anywhere but it's Schmoelling through and through.

'A Long Time Ago'(8.33) starts just as one might expect, a rather suspense strewn piano line strung along by a thick soundbed of synth bass. Anyone remember 'Zeit for Stephan' from the Wuivend Riet album??? This track mutates into a subdued reprise of that fantastic piece at the three minute mark graduating to a sudden synth break of 'Le Parc' styled proportions towards the end!!! Perhaps just a reminder from Johannes that he can turn up the gas any old time he wants.

'Big Cityscapes' has us go all analoguey again as once more we get Johannes conveying his musical message simplistically with a minimum of fuss unyet at the same time turning in a melody that speaks volumes.

The penultimate track, 'It's Your Birthday'(6.39) is with us all too soon firing up on a tapestry of typically off the wall samples as one might expect from the album by now. The lilting melody doesn't sound like its working; every phrase is played off key. Johannes has done this sort of thing before then pulled the track into shape as he goes, but not today. There's a smaltzy musical break halfway through which is when you'd normally expect him to pull the track together, but instead he reverts back to the odd scaling status as before which makes for an unsatisfying track all told without any real conclusion?

'The Time Seller'(6.52) closes the set with a sonic flourish that screams ' this is what we want!!!'. The opening minute sounding like something from 'The Keep' soundtrack followed by a steady build to a cracking theme is something that you just knew had to happen sooner or later with Johannes at the controls. It shows us that in twenty years the equipment may have changed, but that which makes for a 'real punch in the guts' stirring melody never does. As a searing lead screams over the anthemic theme as the piece just rises seeing the album to it's final closure. Excellent work. So to answer my own question, is 'Instant City' the best Schmoelling album ever?