There is a mystical charm found in Germany's Foreign Spaces' take on space music. Their style of infusing lavish soundscapes with uptempo energy creates a sound that is simultaneously hypnotic and dynamic.
FOREIGN SPACES: Ufo Breakfast (CD on Rockwerk Records)
Foreign Spaces is Georg Reiter and Christian Feher. Recording in Germany, this duo produce an energetic electronic sound. No drifting ambience here, these tunes rock with pounding E-perc and urgent keyboard riffs.
The music on this 42 minute CD from 1995 is broken into nine short pieces, each tune a tight space jaunt bringing the listener closer and closer to Earth. Although the song titles mostly deal with UFO visitations, the music drives the listener far beyond our atmosphere into unknown regions of space.
Nimble-fingered keyboards deliver complex patterns and chords with high-energy content. E-perc rhythms propel the tuneage into rock territory with rollicking tempos that bestow a joyful benevolence to these extraterrestrial visitations. The sparseness of this music conveys an urgency that only enhances its danceable effect.
FOREIGN SPACES: Being Creature (CD on Rockwerk Records)
Cut in the style of Klaus Schulze or Vangelis, Foreign Spaces refine their sound with this 1996 release. Space is still the topic of preference for their instrumental excursions, but the structure and tone of the music has gone epic. Driving keyboards and heavenly electronics swarm to fill the void, pummeled into entertaining position by the dramatic E-perc. There are a few pieces that exhibit atmospheric quality, but the main focus of this music is a sense of grandeur.
This 54 minute CD is divided into a few longer pieces (from 8 to 18 minutes) with shorter tunes bridging together the epic compositions. With titles like "Wormhole" and "Nebula", the music leaves the Earth behind, surging toward infinite horizons.
Exuberant electronics spill like twinkling stars across the sky. Fervent keyboard chords dance in the void, generating riffs of luxurious impact. Electronic percussion cascades through the mix with dynamic effect, introducing an interstellar power to the tuneage.
Employing repetitive cycles purely as a foundation, Foreign Spaces delves into a realm of active melodies with urgent riffs and demonstrative variations, wrestling maximum effect from each harmony. The entertainment factor runs high here, with insistent purpose and capable performances.
FOREIGN SPACES: Dark Star (CD on Rockwerk Records)
In 1997, Foreign Spaces directed their sonic expressions even deeper into the mysteries of the quantum void. The dense keyboard electronics swell with breathtaking wonder as they examine stellar matter under ultimate collapse. Brooding synthesizers give way to outbursts of rhythmic tension, sweeping the audience through ascending melodics that strive for greatness and majestic appeal. The E-perc takes on a momentous flair, resounding like distant mountains crashing into each other in climactic tempo.
Astral moods are generated, atmospheric and pensive, only to act as preludes for more urgent melodies that creep with growing power from the interplanetary mists to explode into dynamic passages full of fast-fingered riffs and assertive rhythms. A sense of wonder dominates this tuneage, expanding the listener's mind with each subsequent dose of unearthly melody.
This 45 minute CD again features a blend of longer, epic compositions, separated by a series of briefer, quirkier pieces.
FOREIGN SPACES: Imagination-Pictures-Music (CD on Invisible Shadows)
In 2001, Foreign Spaces enters a time warp to deliver 45 minutes of space music recorded between 1985 and 1989. During this period of time, the band consisted of Georg Reiter, Stefan Ambs, and Marcus Stahuber. This music has been mastered by EM notable Eroc in 2000, creating a sidereal time loop to this glimpse into Foreign Spaces' formative years.
Cosmic tonalities flourish here, with more sedate tuneage that explores the void with sensibilities in the grip of astonishment of interstellar mysteries. Although some E-perc is involved, and even guitar, the tone of this music is dreamier and somber, less frenzied. Languid passages evoke momentous expanses and quantum anomalies with drifting atmospherics and lazily swooping electronics. Spurning repetitive loops, the tunes unfold with distinct structure, employing spatial effects in succession to achieve progression. Bubbling electronics conspire with floating tonalities to produce lavish harmonics that soar above the audience, impressive in their unhurried demeanor.
While the sonic topic is still extraterrestrial in nature, these pieces seem to originate from the perspective of an outsider traveling across the galaxy to discover the Earth and the curious beings that inhabit this world.
With the exception of the first track (at 10 minutes), the short lengths are utilized here, compressing the music into more direct expressions. Meanwhile, one of these brief tracks explodes with the dynamics that mark the band's later style.
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