Triola Im Funftonraum (Remastered Edition)

The press material for Triola im Funftonraum made allusions to home listening, when the album is mostly about movement...in a car...preferably a fast one...on a muggy spring day. This might catch followers of producer Jorg Burger off guard. Up until this point, the producer's Triola tracks -- limited to three consecutive appearances on Kompakt's yearly Pop Ambient series and a spot on Leichtes Horen's Teil 1 -- were free-floating ambient washouts (albeit wondrous free-floating ambient washouts) with no pulse. This album, on the other hand, is beat-driven, though still resolutely ambient -- more an update of Burger's lushest Bionaut tracks, only fully engaging instead of mildly diverting. The soft, synthetic hand drums and tranquil vapors of "Leuchtturm," from Pop Ambient 2003, remain untouched and begin the album. Two other tracks that might sound familiar receive dynamic overhauls, now supported with quick dance rhythms and additional layers of synth gauze; the wispy flute trills and lightly flickering keys of "AG Penthouse," for instance, are melted into a churning rhythm and some singeing keyboard vamps that resemble a relaxed take on Tangerine Dream's suspenseful soundtrack work for Thief (minus the crazy guitars). What really makes the whole thing glow is the manner in which the tracks are attached, flowing in and out of one another, rising and cresting and receding, with supreme poise -- even if its title provides no indication, the album is as much a travelogue as Carl Craig's Landcruising, Morgan Geist's Driving Memoirs, and Model 500's Deep Space. These are some of Burger's most inventive productions, a remarkable feat since he's been doing this so long. Catch yourself in the right frame of mind and you'll wonder if everything he has released has been one extended ramp-up to this. In this age, it is also refreshing to have a purely ambient techno album with absolutely no connection to Boards of Canada. In other words, it's a landmark for both its label and its genre. ~ Andy Kellman