Adelbert von Deyen
Atmosphere

Here I am back after months of absence, due to work, laziness, and various projects, with a new review on our dearly beloved German cosmic rock.

One fine day, wandering the Internet under the tags "cosmic music," I found this album and was struck by its artwork, so much so that I decided to get it. There's too much music around, and yes(!), among the criteria I use to select lesser-known albums, there's also this, the beauty of the cover! I told myself: artwork so intense, hypnotic could only contain equally majestic music!

Well, it didn't! Or at least it wasn't what I expected.

To dismantle my expectations, the 5-minute opener "Time Machine" was enough, where the rather discreet melody is trivialized by the inadequate accompaniment: a sequencer pulsing incessantly on the fundamental of the chord and drums that wouldn't be out of place in a Finley song. Fortunately, already from the next track, "Silverrain," the lightness of the first track can be forgotten. Here the synth, always accompanied by drums (in this case more cadenced and intimate) and an arpeggio (guitar?), navigates through valid phrases, initially melancholic, whipping around to take on epic flavors.

The second part of the album comprises the two suites that name the album: "Atmosphere Part 1" and "Atmosphere Part 2." Although there are minor missteps here and there, Von Deyen's music reaches the album's pinnacle here, especially the second part, over 20 minutes long, which proves to be varied and emotionally engaging, especially in the final crescendo where synthetic choirs accompany the slow, relentless progress of the synth until the reprise of the epic movement that concluded the second track. Cautious, visceral atmospheres, to be savored in the quiet of one's own intimacy.

But then what didn't I like about this album? Except for the first track, of course!

In the notes of Von Deyen's music, unfortunately, one can detect a pronounced influence of Schulze. Sometimes even irritating. In the final two tracks, in particular, the dominant features are the slow harmonic variations typical of Klaus, his synth runs that unleash all their energy at each, more or less long, change of chord. Those typical synthetic sounds appear, filtered in frequency, generating pulsations that come and go, already present in Irrlicht, Cyborg, and many others. A sequencer following canonical patterns adds nothing to the cosmic scene of 6-7 years earlier.

To realize all this, on the other hand, it would have been enough to take a look at the covers of previous works, "Sternzeit" and "Nordborg," and consider that the album in question was published in 1980. I'll let you understand why. After listening to Atmosphere and seeing the cover art of the aforementioned albums, I didn't have the courage to listen to them!

Album too derivative for my taste. I can't rate as excellent a sound reproduced with few modifications almost a decade after its first appearance. Maybe I'm too harsh in judging a work that remains extremely enjoyable and engaging nonetheless especially for fans of the genre (including me) and which extends the period of cosmic music with ambient tones beyond the decade of the 70s.

Rating out of ten: 6.5