Album: FB02
Author: Frans de Waard
Publication: Vital Weekly (source)
Date: 08/08/2006

Only early this year we reviewed 'FB01' by Frank Rothkamm (see Vital Weekly 509), of which I now learn it's a three year old recording. 'FB02 - Astronaut Of Inner Space' was recorded between 2003 and 2006 and is thus indeed his most recent recording.

This new recording is 'a feast for the mind and the ears of anyone interested in the ancient past and utopian future of electronic music" because it easy to access yet complex. Rothkamm likes his ancient synth masters, like noted before both the serious Cologne masters of the fifties as well as the sci-fi soundtracks of the sixties. The pieces are best enjoyed on a 4.1 speaker system, two speakers beside the listener, two in front and a sub-woofer. All the pieces are linked through their titles and thus should be heard as one piece, indexed into nine different pieces.

It's all highly mathematical music, moving away from the pop format of the previous release and the music certainly benefits from that. The length here is certainly more pop LP wise (thirty-four minutes), and tension is well kept in mind: that's certainly the way to do it! A major leap forward.

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