Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Roland Schappert - Route 2 [R-ecords - 2022]

The centre is missing from Roland Schappert’s Route 2, and I think that’s one of the points of the release. He uses a brand of “organic digitality” to create a sonic landscape populated by fragments, and ornaments which surround its empty core. 

We are treated to textures and brief moments of linguistic interjection, but only rarely in full sentences. “I”, “You”, for example, are wrapped around an intricate sonic texture that exists without obvious connection to something fully formed or thought through. “Love You”, is one instance, as well as “Dich”, where we get the sense that Schappert isn’t concerned with making sense; rather, he acts like a grammarian of an electronic language that just is, without the burden of synthesis. Keeping things from crystallizing into an organic whole is actually much harder than it sounds, never absorbing the piercing appearance of the audible into the flattened plain of a song.

On the album’s final track, “Campari Sekt” – an aperitif of Campari and Champagne whose slow, orange mixture is meant to conjure the sunset – it becomes all-too-evident that, for Schappert, there is nothing more absurd than turning raw sounds into metaphors, place-holders for something other than what they are. Getting down to the nitty-gritty of sonic materialism means refusing its incorporation into predetermined structures, a danger more suspect than that of music itself. 

For fans of microtonal minimalism and its forms of blinding clarity, Route 2 will be a treat. For those who desire wholeness and logical progression, look elsewhere. Schappert is too busy investigating the formal structure of his digital sources to be bothered with keeping the centre intact.  To find out more drop in here

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Colin Lang
Latest Reviews

Roland Schappert - Route 2
The centre is missing from Roland Schappert’s Route 2, and I think that’s one of the points of the release. He uses a brand of “organic dig...
160625   Collage - Motel D'amour
160625   Plasma D'arc - Ellipse
060625   Hawkwind - There Is No Space ...
060625   Home Service - A Live Transm...
060625   Fabien Lévy - De l'art d'in...
060625   Evis Sammoutis - Atrapós
050625   Night Of The Felines - Night ...
050625   Bad Channels - Bad Channels( ...
050625   DAS B. - Love
050625   Visceral: Between the Ropes o...
Latest Articles

The Residents - Visits From The N...
2025 sees the release of The Residents' most sonically contrasting release Doctor Dark- the project's forty-seventh studio album.  It blends sad and swo...
280525   The Residents - Visits From T...
090525   Ennaytch - Of walls, abused ...
150425   Dead, Dead Swans interview - ...
110325   Sebastian Tomb - Walls of unb...
040225   Alien Sex Fiend - Possessed B...
231224   Best Of 2024 - Music, Sound &...
191224   Splintered - Somewhere Betwee...
031224   Shane Ryan-Reid - Coerced and...
221024   Whore’s Breath - life’s h...
011024   David Kerekes Interview - Int...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom