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[ home | music | journalism | biography | music samples | orders | news | press | email | links - German ]      Living Tunes LT 125.602 - 2003 „Oooops, this one is quite different from ‚Nightmares & Escapades’“, was the reaction of one of the first listeners of Frank Gingeleit’s new CD „Megalopolis“. His debut still had confused some listeners and left them shaken in their conception as to what music is about. There was also enthusiasm, of course, and some reviewers appraised the brilliance and image inducing power of the music. „Megalopolis“, Frank’s second CD, heads in a completely new direction: Cheerfully elated - almost „conventional“ - sythesizer sounds open the CD („Planets’ Spring Dance“), followed by electronic noise rhythms and portato style melodies („Chinese Cosmology“), onomatopoetic sound paintings that might accompany sattelite pictures of the flight over a continent („Terra Australis“) or a car ride through a never ending city („Megalopolis“). Next are two tunes that rather try to describe mental conditions („Bad State of Mind“, „Adjust Your Clock“) followed by some kind of a symphonic poem that can either be percieved „as it is played“ or transposed into an orchestral arrangement by the listener („Sacred Mountains Serenade“). The greater accessibility of „Megalopolis“ compared to „Nightmares & Escapades“ is largely due to the exclusive use of a so called virtual analogous sythesizer whose sound scope reaches from the classical electronic sounds of the Seventies to the most recent „fat“ sounds of modern electronic music. These sounds are never used just like intended by the sound designers of the instrument, however, but likewise don’t deny their reference to the stylistic idiom of the electronic music genre which they can easily be filed in, unlike many of the „outrageous“ sounds of „Nightmares & Escapades“. With the exception of the rather unintentional pleasance of the opening tune - that nevertheless should not have been sacrificed on the altar of absolute non-commerciality as it is simply „beautiful“ in an unpretentious way and therefore remained on the CD - „Megalopolis“ as a whole is also rather to be added to the experimental and avant-garde range of the category. One can expect that Gingeleit’s new CD again will be percieved quite differently: as film music without a film by some and as producing strong internal pictures by others. The music of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream is obvious as a point of reference, but it’s neither copied nor imitated. „Megalopolis“ offers independent music for adults whose minds are already „expanded“ - and for their children. The comment of a three-year-old (by the way the son of the initially mentioned listener) who heard „dwarves“ in one ot the tunes, is very encouraging in this regard... Frank Gingeleit understands his music as an analytic „dispute“ with sonic material similar to the way as painting artists describe it for colors and light or writers for texts. A part of this discussion refers to reactions of the listeners, especially those who for their part understand listening to music also as a discussion with tonal material. In this sense „Megalopolis“ is partly a counter-outline to „Nightmares & Escapades“, partly an advancement and partly walking on a new way. Though far away from „harmless melodiousness“, it nevertheless represents a conscious bridge to the better known and more comprehensible side of electronic music. Go to sound samples  Go to reviews Back to the "Megalopolis" start page Zurück zu music