Shades Of Orion (1993). Tetsu Inoue's second full-length collaboration with Pete Namlook splits evenly between beatless and beat-oriented ambient, with spacey, immersive textures and subtle arrangements. High production values and the wealth of creative territory covered make for one of the finest early Fax releases.
Shades Of Orion 2 (1994). One of the better long-form releases in the Fax stable. This second Shades of Orion project is quite different from the first… a single relaxing, drifty, ethereal piece that will slow your body down and put you to sleep if you need it to. Meditative and very gentle, this recording is free of spoken word samples and sonic distractions, which makes it ideal for just chilling out to.
The first three volumes of the Air series are high-water marks for Pete Namlook. Like the Silence series they show some rich ethnic and neo-classical leanings, and they remain particularly effective examples of how he uses live acoustic instruments in an electronic setting. The delicate, tinkling cymbals and soft tom-tom beats on "Je suis seule et triste ici" from Air I (1993), for instance, are utterly refreshing because Namlook is able to maintain a deep electronic ambient feel while still expanding electronica's instrumental vocabulary.
Air II (1994) is deeply psychedelic. An eleven-part "trip" subtitled "Traveling Without Moving", it takes it's thematic cue from Frank Herbert's cult sci-fi novel and movie Dune…
2350 Broadway (1993) is the first in a series recorded by Namlook and Tetsu Inoue. The first half is rather too short on tones and melody but the second disc, consisting of the 70-minute epic "Hands Of Light" is a masterful exercise in deep spacemusic. It's glacial pace varies only marginally between beatless and gently pulsed and its mix of electronic drones, wind effects and melodies is deceptively simple.
2350 Broadway 2 (1994) is a seminal, almost fabled release spanning two CDs and recorded by Namlook and Tetsu Inoue in real time (no pre- or post-production and no overdubs). Remarkably engaging for its simplicity, the set was subsequently reissued by popular demand and spawned a pair (and counting) of follow-ups in the series…
Wolfram Spyra is a German composer of electronic music. He began his career in the early 1990s constructing 'soundscapes' and installations around Germany. He has collaborated with a wide range of visual artists, musicians, producers and DJs. He has released several albums, starting in 1995 with Homelistening Is Killing Clubs. Spyra's focus is on instrumental electronic music, seamlessly blending interesting samples, synthesizers, percussion and other elements together in unique ways. While sometimes experimental, most of his music has a certain accessibility in terms of the rhythmic and melodic components. Though frequently associated with the retro or "Berlin school" sound pioneered by Klaus Schulze and others, he uses modern ambient electronica elements extensively, creating his own rich sound that defies easy categorization.
Create (1994). Create is the second of the four collaborations between Namlook and Charles Uzzell-Edwards. It is one of those long, single-track Fax albums, conveniently indexed every five minutes or so. It starts out in a rather dark and sinister fashion, with a lot of rumbling and some extremely distorted voices just about audible in the background. It continues this way for the next fifteen minutes or so with various other clicks and static interference washing in and out of the of the left and right channels. By the time the fourth track rolls around the beginnings of some more atmospheric drones start to make themselves felt and we slowly drift off into deep space territory of the kind found on Shades of Orion 2…
The first thing that hits you when you play this CD is the fact that Pete Namlook has no part in it, and without his style, this album is noticeably different from the others. This is good in the sense that the tracks differ from what might be expected, but the inconsistencies between the tracks are quite noticeable. Compilation 1 kicks off with "Never Mind", a formulaic 909/analogue thumper that (like most Fax dance produce) works for a few listens and is then usually forgotten. "Elephant Overload" is another distorted hardcore techno track; nothing outstanding. Both "Lost In Motion" and "Dune (Of Love)" are pleasant but fairly run-of-the-mill trance/progressive tracks…
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").
4Voice II (1998). After extensive journeys through the incredible worlds of futuristic and ancient sounds, Pete Namlook rediscovered the Bass Drum. Now reintegrated into the most successful Trance-Product on Fax it is being taken to an area where melodic Dance, Electronic Listening Music and Ambient have their home. Check out the integration of monumental Hip Hop sounds on "New York, 25th of November 2089", travel to the "Cave of Ancient Dreams" with Ambient, dance with "Old Loves Dies Hard", go on a ride with "The Driver" and fall in Love with "Anemra"…
Dreamfish (1993). Galactic tides of white noise usher in an expansive trip from Pete Namlook with the UK's silver-suited Ambient space cadet, Mixmaster Morris, whose eclectic DJing graced many a comedown party at the time. If Dreamfish now feels anchored in its era, it's still one of the best surviving examples of a moment when new Ambient lived a utopian dream of a technologically enlightened borderless society, sharing immersive virtual experiences around the world wide web's global campfire. There's a minty freshness and optimism about “School of Fish," while the shorter (nine minute) “Fishology” features the synthetically treated voice of Terrence McKenna, Hawaii-based futurologist and author of Food of the Gods, whose shamanistic theories of techno-paganism and extraterrestrial ancestry fit right in with the stew of ideas and New Age psychedelics which fertilized much of the early '90s Ambient scene…
Pino & Wildjamin come from Germany and they are also known as Analogue Silence, Basalt Boys, Ghost Train and Xangadix. Xangadix began as an ambient-trance outfit, with a line-up of Pino Shamlou and Benjamin Wild, but as their sophomore record was released it was evident that they had evolved into something more. Their ethereal and often quite complicated music was unusual for the early Fax label - even Namlook, the label's chief composer, wasn't working at this echelon yet. The music could broadly be referred to as downtempo, but it's got the mandatory electro beats and quite a strong groove throughout.