Steve Hauschildt: Where All Is Fled

Sixth solo album by the Emeralds electronics man.

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For inspiration, this Ohio artist draws on surrealist paintings, alchemical symbols and visions experienced in dreams.

Look at this cover – you half expect one of the Dali-esque figures from Klaus Schultze’s Black Dance or Timewind to hove into view. Musically, Hauschildt’s sixth album is reminiscent of Schultze in that period, as well as Tangerine Dream circa Ricochet, but its synths and sequencers also evoke the inner space explorations of so-called ‘intelligent techno’ acts on the Warp label of the early 90s like Balil and Speedy J, and contemporary analogue synth group, Node. Caduceus (the sign for infinity) is, fittingly, a möebius strip of sequencers, Sundialed has a song-like chordal structure, and Aequus utilises a more crunchy digital rhythm. All the sound sources, including found sounds, are treated in a way that makes for an immersive experience, with any hard edges softened. The dynamic range is wide: whereas Eyelids Gently Dreaming billows and drifts, The World Is Too Much With Us rips along with dazzling high-speed sequencers. By contrast, the title track is a stately piano piece redolent of Cluster’s Hans-Joachim Roedelius, swathed in lots of reverb.

Mike Barnes

Mike Barnes is the author of Captain Beefheart - The Biography (Omnibus Press, 2011) and A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & the 1970s (2020). He was a regular contributor to Select magazine and his work regularly appears in Prog, Mojo and Wire. He also plays the drums.