*********************************** AM/FM ***********************************                              ______                                _______         »»» T A P E S «««                          ---------                                               ___ ° ° ° ° ___                             Artist: VECTOR SPACE (Chris Höppner)   Title: "FIRST SEQUENCES"   AM/FM Rating: 8,5   (0-10)    Reviewed by Bjørn A. Lynne  SEE ALSO PICTURE OF THE CASSETTE COVER ON THIS AM/FM DISK! Contact Address: Chris Höppner Neuer Heidkamp 33 4400 Münster GERMANY (If you want to buy the tape, enclose 14 DM + 2 DM in post and packing) Songs: Equipment used: - Mermaid's Dream 06:50 (Not stated) - Cornfields in Summer 05:00 - First Flight 12:12 - Night In Skara Brae 07:50 - Walking Through Woods 07:00 - Classical Excursions 08:30 - Bagdad Cafe 03:50 Chris Höppner is an editor of an amateur magazine, just like myself, and that is how I got to know him (well, kind of). His magazine is called "Waves", is written in German (too bad) and specializes in electronic synthesizer music. Recommended for everyone who reads German! If you're interested, contact Chris at the address above. He is, of course, like the rest of us, also a budding composer, and he's been kind enough to send a tape to the AM/FM Basement Tapes section. Chris works under the "pseudonym" VECTOR SPACE, which is a very suitable name for the music he composes. (Why didn't I think of that name?!!) :-) The cassette he sent us is titled "First Sequences", and as the name implies, it is his first try to collect his music on a tape and make it available to others. The tape is a normal C60 tape of good (above-average) quality which is recorded with Dolby B. The sound quality is allright, although of course not perfect. I suppose you can't get it much better on a normal audio tape. The cover is quite nice, with a colour-printed inlay-card showing a spacey picture on the front. (Refer to the scanned version of it here on this AM/FM issue). The inside of the cover-inlay lists the songs and the contact address. Chris' music is what I would call "Classic New Age" music. Soft and floating, with very little drums and percussion, but with plenty upon plenty of floating, airy strings, slow and gentle. If I should compare Chris' music to something that most of you will have heard about, it will be Vangelis and perhaps some of the softer of Jarre's work. At first, when listening to this tape, I didn't think it was all that hot; I felt it was a bit too quiet, too slow, to gentle, and a bit repetitive. However, I realised soon that I had to listen with a little different approach, and after listening to the whole thing a few more times, the tape has become a personal favourite of mine! The music is nice and gentle, soothing, and warm. It has a certain comforting effect. Nothing really surprising happens in the songs, but the way the songs live their life, you don't really want them to be broken up. The songs just float along their careful path. While listening to this music, I feel in a strange way, calm, secure and relaxed. Nice effect! The tape doesn't state which synthesizers that were used, but it's not hard to hear that Chris has got is equipment lined up pretty good. The sound quality is, if not fantastic, more than good enough to satisfy me. A little about each of the songs: Mermaid's Dream This is the most Jarre-like of all the songs on the tape, I think. It has long, slow melody lines and very mellow chords. In the middle of a song, a soft rhythm track appears along with a lighter melody line with very typical Jarre-sounds. The rhythm track disappears after a while, and the song closes where it opened with it's nice mellow chords. Cornfields in Summer This one takes off pretty much where the previous one landed, with lovely synth strings and a whistle-like lead. This is really atmospheric stuff. Unlike the first one, this track contains no drums or percussion whatsoever. Chris' chord progressions are really good, they create a nice mellow and warm atmosphere. First Flight This song features jet airplane sound effects (hence the name, I suppose) and even longer and even airier string-chords than the two previous ones. In the beginning, there's an extremely repetitive C-D-D#-G pattern which I personally think was a bit too dominant, but after a couple of minutes, it disappears and is replaced with a bit more varied melodies played with typical synth instruments. This song wasn't my favourite; I think it sounds a bit like Chris has sat down and decided to make a song, even though he didn't feel very inspired and didn't have any really good ideas to work with. Night In Skara Brae This is better. The nerve and the mellow feeling is back. This song contains more dynamics and atmosphere; actually I think it's the best one this far on the tape. There's a wonderful spooky feeling to the sounds and the chords. Walking Through Woods This song too takes off more or less like the others, but this time the chords have a different feel to them - I can hear that the title of the song fits the music perfectly. Thoughts of Tolkien and the Great Forests come to me when I hear this. Sometimes the big fat take a break and let through a beautiful whistle/flute lead, which is later again joined by the same nice synth chords. Very delicately put together. Classical Excursions This one doesn't start like the rest of them - it starts with a simple little piano tune, later to be joined by the strings we've got to know so well by now. A cuteish and sweet melody line leads us into visits with all the various typical "classic" instruments; however the arrangements sound more like New Age music than Classic music, so this piece becomes a strange mix of some kind. Not the best piece this, although it gets better in the last half. Bagdad Cafe This is the last song, and for the first time since the first song on the tape, we're treated to a rhythm track (which I personally found too weak and not very "realistic"). We're also given an actual bass-line here, with a synth bass; and some eastern/arabic sounding lead. The song continues to develop around various eastern sounding themes, but all in all, this song didn't do much for me. I would rather have this one replaced with one that fits better into the continuity of the tape - a natural last song would be one that is more like the general style on the tape. Instead, this song tends to break from the rest of the tape.  Conclusion:  If you like Jarre's soft songs, and if you like Vangelis' music, then I can warmly recommend that you write to Chris and buy this tape. It is absolutely worth it's low price. I think every song on the tape (except First Flight) are great. And of course; Chris uses his Amiga for sequencing, so you'll probably want to hear what hear what he's been able to get out of it. If you're after hardhitting rave music or funk, jazz, groove or rock, then you should look elsewhere. My personal favourite among the Basement-Tapes we've received so far! AM/FM Rating (0-10): 8,5 (Finally, I want to ask more of you readers to PLEASE submit your own Basement Tapes. Remember that you don't have to be Jarre to take part in this - it's for amateurs! Any tape with music composed by AM/FM-readers is welcome!) *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************