Koan - Frontiers CD Review

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2006-12-22 : DJ HELMUT : Link
KOAN: "Frontiers" (RED STREAM, 2001)

Looking for frontiers in the all-engulfing chaos is the original burden imposed on the thinking man - the primal call of the wild. But when you find one you'll have to destroy it according to the insane laws of our miscontroled evolution. It's not easy to trade such a circumvented path, especially in the arts' spiraling cycles. The source of eternal confusion lies in this trivium: if you meet a Buddha you'd better kill it. Godless spies on the loose we are - the parable of the hunted hunter. The busy anthill getting better all the time is frozen stagnation of a repetitive nightmare from above: the body might be new but the dream remains the same. The horror of Avatars. Technology's only an environmental issue. Border-crossing is a wake-up trial - you can find yourself only through betrayals. Focusing on the bow is the archery of sure shots. Since infinity is unlimited, the game's oriented by the player's mystic taste alone: everybody needs to occupy his own room in the house of culture. And we want it wide 'cause we aren't like humble MOTOERHEAD. But rebellious baby giants with the power of ten stallions.
There is nothing to decode in a koan - to solve a riddle would be ultimate crime. The answer's in the question if correctly posed. One thing, however, bothers me deeply: how would I take this music if not knowing who made it?! An awful dilemma of objective criticism. In the final analysis the individual is everything and that's why anonymity is such a primitive trend of postmodern suicide. My burning respect for HIMINBJORG made me purchase this attractive CD on the discount - ready for another disappointing side-project with no sense at all. It's great to be wrong for a superstitious pessimist. This is a wonderful side-project eliminating a very important

frontier on the map of genres, invigorated by the red stream of consciousness awarded to the new seekers. Basically it's atmospheric electronica with rhythm and noise but defies established categories: digital softcore with a commanding simplicity to trance in and out. No militia a la NOCTURNE, no robotica from DIE FORM's torture chamber. The fields are its factory descrying the folksy veins under the industrial heartbeat. The artefact's black roots are keeping its sobriety decadently twisted.

The music is a mixture of ritual and suspense encompassing a much larger dominion than its actual movement. It's reaching out from Terry Riley to the Quaali King without pretense - the unknown space unfolds by a perennial fission. Its ambience, in spite of a catastrophe's underlying sorrow, is anything but dark - all in all it's another green world under the topical noontide's ashen Sun. Rainforests are the central theme of the concept in the true New Ageian tradition - not a novelty concern but a bigger surprise than SCORN's desert island. Has Zahaah sold his soul to Loki? I don't think so. This sound is made to heal without psychedelic overtones. Echoes of a departure, the articulate screams of disintegration never fail to cohere. There's nothing urban in KOAN or anything futuristic. They know how to avoid stylistic traps. Half Orff - half Satie, profanity is a major key in this natural compost. There's even a 15 minutes repetitivo in the midst of it on grand piano over the endless sea to induce lethal ecstasy in the insomniac listener, but all the cold confrontations resolve in Southern comfort in the end. The journey's accompanied by a Celto-Tibetan choir of alien monks taking over the outro like premonition. Odin might know what was it all about, but the audience shouldn't care: let this produce exist without lesson. It's just perfect for an acid-rainy afternoon. Now let's go back home in the ravens' shadow.