This album contains material from 1988 – 1989, before Arne Schäfer became involved with Versus X. Apogee has always been intended to push the boundaries of what could be accepted as prog, so Throbbing Gristle and Kraftwerk have as much influence as VDGG or King Crimson. On this double CD set he is joined by vocalist Gerald Heimann, and while all of the vocals are in German there is an English translation of the lyrics in the booklet. I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this album, as although I have albums by all four bands mentioned above in my collection – how would it all fit together? Also, when I saw that the five songs on disc one (and the first song on disc two) were all described as movements of the same piece. Now, when someone states that it is a movement (as opposed to a section or individual song) they raise the stakes as normally movements are associated with classical music – so just how good is this?
Well, to be honest, not very. There are some sections where it is really very good, but that is overweighed by the times when I was wondering just how much longer it had to go on. Some of the keyboard sounds being used are incredibly dated, even allowing for the fact it was recorded more than 20 years ago. There are times when it reminded me more of some of the worse elements of electronic music that was around twenty years ago – but there again I don’t believe that I am the intended audience as this is part of a series of releasing some of Arne’s archives, so there must be people out there who are demanding this. To me this just sounds like a series of demo recordings that I am unlikely to listen to again.
www.mals.ru
