The Berlin School

"Welcome once again in the electronic world of Create". This is how Englishman Steve Humphries opens the booklet of his CD "In The Blink Of An Eye" under his artistname Create. Steve’s world is deeply rooted within the Berlin School style of electronic music.
"In The Blink Of An Eye" contains music Steve composed in his Backroom Studio. Two of the tracks, "No Inhibitions" and "Collision", were played live in this studio. Steve’s music is beging built up in an excellent way. Where many retro/Berlin School-musicians use long intros with experimental effects and atmospheric sounds, Steve gets to the point rather quickly and starts his sequencers, over which he plays his solos and lays his retrosounds…

Paul Ellis' Into The Liquid Unknown is as close to classic Berlin-school electronic music (i.e., Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze) as one can get without actually being from the Berlin school. The mechanical sounds of classic analog synthesizers and sequences pulsates on this recording from the beginning until the end. Fans of Steve Roach's early rhythmic- and sequencer-based work, such as Empetus and Now/Traveler, will verily enjoy Ellis' Into The Liquid Unknown. Ellis has crafted this recording into a long-running and cohesive work that drips of electronic music nostalgia, while at the same time creating a work that is truly representative of his own voice. This is a fine recording, and certainly a time-worthy disc for those who have a thirst for German electronic music that longs to be quenched.

The American synthesist Paul Ellis is a fast growing power in electronic music. From the Berlin school-orientated music he created with the band Dweller at the Threshold and on his early solo works, he switched to an impressive mixture between Berlin school, ambient and lots of own inventions.
The Haunted Afternoon is a collection of improvised pieces that were performed live and stitched together to make one album.

Dweller at the Threshold in its original incarnation, was a synthesizer trio. The members were Dave Fulton, Paul Ellis, and Jeff Vasey. No Boundary Condition is their debut CD, and it has a firm foothold in the Berlin school of electronic music. The trio surrounds micro-atmospheres with heavy sequences and waves of synthesizer riffs. While this CD has all the elements of early electronica, it has enough experimental textures to lift it a notch or two. Indeed, this disc could be the logical follow-up to The Forbidden Planet by Bebe and Louis Barron from 1956. (That album is often recognized as the first all electronic album. It won an Oscar for best soundtrack that year as well.) But DATT is neither primitive nor primal. They are immersed - totally - in the technology of the new millennium.

Ken Martin has been composing & playing electronic music for 40 years. He's developed his own unique blend of Berlin school & space music that hearkens back to the golden age of instrumental synth music. "Berlin Impressions" is a tribute to the early Berlin electronic music scene - gone are the days of analog production - this CD is a homage to the old electronic sounds created with the latest technology.

Ken Martin has been composing & playing electronic music for 40 years. He's developed his own unique blend of Berlin school & space music that hearkens back to the golden age of instrumental synth music. "Berlin Impressions" is a tribute to the early Berlin electronic music scene - gone are the days of analog production - this CD is a homage to the old electronic sounds created with the latest technology.