baikonour - for the lonely hearts of the cosmos
baikonour is all about jean-emmanuel krieger. he writes, produces and plays anything and everything on these 11 instrumental tracks, with a little help from a couple of friends. having heard previous ep's i was keen to see if i would enjoy this groovesome revival of psychedelic, electronically enhanced rock music over a whole album.
well, calm the nerves, this is a wonderful way to spend a far too short 35 minutes. following the ambient opening of 'lick lokoum', there is the predefined funk of 'coltan anyone?' with the simple krautrock styled bass line and added layers of keyboards, reveeb, and spaced out guitars gel in a way to make a track so great that the fun is repeated for 'proto-coeur' and several others, motorific melody lines are pronounced and doubled up by guitars, while drum machines drive the force, and all manner of simple but effective instrumental layers are phased in and out on demand, all of which makes the track speed by, until 2.5 minutes when suddenly the listener is thrown into a full on 70's rock monster of guitar chord excess, for just long enough, before things are hauled back into their correct manner.
in fact, it's this clash of classic prog excellence, modern electronica enhancements, and genuine attention to melody, that make this album rather special. while a lot of the music is initially very familiar (hello pink floyd, hello tangerine dream, hello kraftwerk), there is something fresh, new and vital about the way baikonour makes music, resulting in a new spin on an old friend, with reverential nods towards several absent family members like '60 to 0' where the guitars are feedback'd and looped in such a way, you just know that the guys have copies of my bloody valentines 'loveless' to hand. of course though, this is all about the prog-krautrock, thankfully, stripping away the need for crap lyrics about castles and suchlike, the straightforward grooves will definitely make any party swing. baby.
oh, and the packaging is probably the best sleeve of 2005, with appropriately surreal artwork by etien rode, (go here for more detail), who also happens to guitars on a couple of tracks - people with too much talent. humph.)