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CD Feature/ Johannes Schmoelling: "Instant City"

  Tobias

“They” say that without sadness and pain there wouldn’t be any great music. That it takes suffering to create something beautiful, something which will last. And “they” particularly stress that making music should be a therapeutic process, an act of urgency. So what to make of Johannes Schmoelling? He seems a pretty happy person. The need to release albums on a yearly basis has gone – excluding reworked versions of older records and an unusual remix project, there’s a full eleven years between his last effort, the classically-flavoured “Songs without words” and “Instant City”. So, as a question of deductive logic, this should be a boring and redundant affair.

It’s good then, that the merrits of music are not yet being gauged by arithmetics, then. Schmoelling, like Manuel Göttsching, has never really been away, which is also the reason why this is not being billed as a “Comeback” album. Instead, he has been active in two music-releated areas, which have forever been close to his heart: Theatre productions and especially radio plays, which have allowed him to express himself with the biggest freedom imagineable. And it is this freedom and an air of determined coolness combined with a romantic soul, which have made “Instant City” such a plentiful and convincing affair. This is the work of a man who does not have to proove anything to the world anymore, who can simply put the melodies and structures inside his head into sound. The album gets off to an incredible start with the four first tracks, which take the listener on a floating, yet forceful ride. The tender piano intro of the nine-minute long “Passing By” lulls one into security, before the sequencers kick in and the track is propelled far above the peaks of the skyscrapers, switching from one harmonic plateau to the next. “Giants out of the Fog” works with similarly weightless rhytmic patterns, this time joining forces with pressing bass power and an airy, majestic theme, which glides by like clouds on a blue sky. The title track, meanhwile, consists of a hypnotic melody pulling a slightly nervous groove and an energetic, almost angry drum line, while the dreamy “Contemplative Clouds” is a spaceous fantasy of gentle waves of sound and mournful piano drops. Schmoelling’s handwriting from his time with Tangerine Dream is still recognisable, but his music has gained in “grounding” – especially the rhythmic foundation is very earthy and direct and it is neither the tingling sequencer patterns nor the dreamy pads which are at the fore, but rather song-oriented elements. Which creates the pleasant sensation of being able to breathe freely without the fear of drifting off into the cosmos. At about halfway, the album changes its course just a bit and the focus is now on two remarkably short, sharp and contemporary tracks (which suggest the man has lent an occasional ear to the trance- and deep techno scene) and timeless compositions with an autumnal touch. Far from repeating himself, there are surprises everywhere here – and the way in which he turns “Joyful Solitude” from a melancholic, slow-burning epic into a smooth-jazz-jam or handles the wild mood swings of “A ,long time ago” are signs of superb craftmanship.

It is true, though: “Instant City” never lets it head droop nor does it wallow in self-pitty. So for all those who want their music to be made form pain, suffering, sadness or frustration, this will be hard to swallow. For everyone else, it is a multi-facetted, uplifting and rich listening experience full of unexpected twists and turns. Let "them" talk.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Johannes Schmoelling
Homepage: Viktoriapark Records