Markus Reuter, Featuring Sonar and Tobias Reber, Falling for Ascension

Some music you are at first thrown off a bit by, in that you weren't sure what to expect, but this was not quite it. Then later you settle in and find it is music of real excellence. It is part of the ever growing possibilities of a true artist, and as a true listener you need to be ready for anything. So this describes well my first, somewhat distracted listen and my later embrace of Markus Reuter's Falling for Ascension (Ronin RON018)..

That this is released on Nik Bartsch's Ronin label is not an accident. The themes for this album were written by Markus between 1985 and 1987. Yet they do not sound at all dated. They share with Bartsch's music a mesmeric minimal funk that sprawls wonderously outward with continually shifting, odd meters. It is a mid-sized ensemble of six players, Markus on touch guitars and soundscapes, plus two more guitars, bass guitars and live electronics.

Each segment carves out its meter-motif infinity with distinctly well hewn structure and flow. The final work "Unconditional" makes a definitive end of it with the most compelling and complex of all of them. I very much suppose your ears will hear the relation between the Crimsonian tide of those years as well as its place in the prog minimal funk that followed.

It is exceptional music for endlessly rewarding drift and ecstatic momentum. It is ensemble intricacy at its most musically stimulating, both rock and post-rock!

Grab it for sure!