Music Review - Bernhard: "Live in New Jersey 2011" (2011)

I owe Bernhard one: he offered that I download this album about a week before its public release date so I could help him write a bit of English-language blurbery to help promote the album. I liked the music so much (full disclosure: that usually happens to me with music Bernhard is involved in) that I suggested I write a clandestine pre-release review and post it on various web sites. Unfortunately, things involving a one-eyed cat, seasonal affective disorder and an obscure, metaphysical concept named "life" happened, and it's now almost a month after "Live in New Jersey 2011"'s wide release. There's still time, right? Right?

So, as it happens, Bernhard Wöstheinrich usually tends to separate his solo output into the monickers Bernhard–ambient electronic music–and The Redundant Rocker–electronic pop. On his live tour down the eastern seaboard of the USA, during which he played live sets in front of physically present audiences and to radio audiences worldwide, his two oft-separate musical styles seem to have merged a bit, to surprisingly pleasing effect. It's ambient pop, so to speak, and "Live in New Jersey 2011" is fit for listening to while lounging on a lazy afternoon, but it's just as appropriate to enjoy during the morning commute.

The music of the 50-minute-long track "Live in Princeton", recorded on WPRB's show "Music With Space", flows slowly from one motif to another, transforming rhythmic and melodic elements from one section on the go by way of filter and timing changes. Meanwhile, Bernhard layers his synthesizer improvs–by playing them live and often keeping those lines around for looping–into soundscapes that give this piece a beautiful, alternatingly serene and mystifying quality that works the stereo spectrum so well that you'll want to hear it with good headphones. The only obvious changes in speed and texture involve the three segments that play over the last twelve minutes of the track–they are a bit more frantic and a bit brasher, but there's also a minimalistic synth improv that'll remind any listener that Bernhard spent a lot of time listening to Tony Banks over the years. ;) And there's even a stylistic throw-back to both centrozoon's album "the cult of: bibbiboo" and Bernhard's and my live collaboration "Anentropic Potential" in the last two minutes of the piece, which makes me happy as a clam!

"Live in Hackensack", recorded at the Equinoxygen Festival 2011, and at a running time of only 15 minutes the shorter track of this album, begins in medias res with some percussion that quickly takes a back seat to alternatingly lofty and boomy soundscapes. It takes a few minutes before the percussion turns odd and Bernhard begins experimenting. He juxtaposes ambitions of becoming a rave DJ (unrelenting rhythm) with sounding like one of the ProjeKcts (soundscapes) and applying his personal, whacky language to beloved musical terms often heard in progressive rock over the years–there's also a snippet of a "love theme" (judging by the stereotypical use of certain musical elements for movie love themes) that's quickly recombobulated into yet another rave. This piece is a little less fit for the lounge, and a bit more for the morning commute–especially, if you're stuck in traffic and need something to keep your mind from the idea of just racing down the shoulder. It's the more experimental and less pleasing of the two tracks, but certainly the more versatile.

On "Live in New Jersey 2011", Bernhard obviously paints with musical notes. It seems as if each segment on the Princeton track is a miniature cut-out from one larger painting: aspects of one segment exist in the others, but there's enough subject shift that each facette has individuality. There's even a dig (or at least I imagine one) at traditional, conservative electronic music, in that he incorporates elements of the notorious Berlin and Düsseldorf Schools, but applies his own musical language of subtle, ongoing transformation to them–most synth lines and arpeggios on "Princeton" keep morphing around just so slightly that it takes mental energy to keep track of all these parts if you'd want to actually notice which part changes in what way. "Hackensack" is less concerned with cohesiveness and more interested in meshing elements of Bernhard's many musical identities in a relatively short time; this is the one where the Redundant Rocker takes over, big time.

So, what's the verdict? YES. Short and simple.

Bernhard
Live in New Jersey 2011

Released 30 November 2011 on Extended Moment
Available at the iapetus store