Stefan Schwander from Dusseldorf has earned numerous merits for music. These may have remained hidden from the mainstream audience. Who can remember Antonelli Electr.? Or The Bad Examples? With his project Harmonious Thelonious, Schwander has distinguished himself over a period of twelve years with his idiosyncratic studies of rhythms from African and South American traditions. On his latest album, the approach is supposedly more unpretentious: »Cheapo Sounds« announces cheap sounds as a bracket, whereby the »cheapo« sounds even a touch cheaper than the unabbreviated »cheap«. Which doesn’t apply to the music, however. On »Liquid Sound Waves«, for example, he creates a loosely woven tapestry of seemingly stoically flowing patterns with the understatement typical of Schwander, to which you can dance sedately or just let your own synapses move. But it doesn’t stop there, because with »Limitations« it heads towards electronic post-punk, with an »oriental« touch. The »cheapest« may well be »Gummi Twist & Crawl (The Suitcases Are Empty)« with its delightfully stupid name, a kind of electro-swing with a child-friendly melody. However, Schwander wouldn’t be Schwander if he didn’t endow these simple ingredients with his own charm. Incidentally, the entire album was produced on a Monomachine from Elektron, which may very well be a good concept. On»Orion Stars«, Harmonious Thelonious confidently demonstrates how weightlessly polyrhythms can be layered with this machine. The record has ten tracks and is 35 minutes long. That’s plenty long enough for a big hit.
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