Lambert Essential

This is an overview of Lambert Ringlage's musical works from a variety of albums, some solo and some in collaboration with others, namely Apeiron, Stephen Parsick, Jiannis, and Palantir. For fans who already have most of the original CDs, the disc also includes two previously unreleased tracks, one from 1989 and one from 1999. The disc opens with 'Light Sky,' showing off Lambert's penchant for catchy, bouncy EM with crisp sequencing. Even better is 'SUN,' which recently appeared on the Jiannis & Lambert CD 'Timeless Vision,' but this time he is assisted by Apeiron instead. This was one of my favourite tracks on 'Timeless Vision,' so I don't mind at all hearing a slightly different version of it here. The layering of synths and sequencers is top-notch. By the end of the track, one is searching the credits for Chris Franke's name, and perhaps Johannes Schmoelling's as well.

'Successive Pictures' features a nice guitar lead to go with, of course, more sequencing, and bright synth stabs. 'Energetic' has a really effective modulated sequence. This track adeptly shows Lambert's compositional strength. These aren't long improvised sequences, they are melodic, structured pieces for the most part. The somewhat quirky 'Two Worlds' is next, but then, I suppose someone might want a break from all that sequencing. Not me, so I welcome it's onslaught again with 'Return,' the great closing track from his 'Dimensions of Dreams' CD. This is heady stuff for Teutonic enthusiasts, just great! Next comes three excerpts from longer Lambert tracks, all from collaborations. A five-minute snippet from 'Voyage to Nowhere' feels a bit spliced from the original, which was 25 minutes in its two-part entirety. 'Open Sky' works pretty well in its excerpted form, though the fade out is just a bit too hurried. Best of all, the edited 'White Light' avoids the strange trumpeting from the original. The disc closes with the two bonus tracks, 'Floating in Magic' and 'Glider.' The former is an 11-minute gorgeous piece of hypnotic sequencing from 1989, the latter is a short, rather mellow new piece, an interesting choice to finish off a generally very satisfying disc. (PD)

This page is part of a frame set. If you can't see the information strip to the left of the screen then click on the smd logo above.