Monday 25 February 2013

Berlyn Trilogy Review


Words Of A Stranger / Can The Heart Be Saved
Berlyn Trilogy
Self Released

I could never say I was a fan of ‘Darkwave/Synthpop’ but I have had a positive experience of the genre recently in the shape of a two track release from Berlyn Trilogy. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me when it’s any type of electronica and there’s even a slight mention of Germany it always conjures up images of Kraftwerk, and yes the Bowie link in the name intrigued me, SO…

The first track, the newest, was pretty absorbing, it comes on like the theme to a Sci-Fi film that is yet to be made; slightly unnerving, brooding even yet with a fairly slick gloss surface that only synths can create. This three-piece seem to have been playing around Wakefield for a while, but I’ve never seen them live, although I can honestly say that I’ve not seen many bands of this ilk live because it’s just not my bag watching three people standing behind keyboard stands.

However, sitting on the plane flying away from the snow for a few sunny days of February escapism, these two tracks did the trick. Something in those receding grey skies and the fluffy clouds beneath me helped me to find the optimism that I assume has always lived inside of electronic music, hitherto unappreciated by me!

Keyboards used to only make me think of grey skies, post-Soviet apartment blocks and Trabants, but it’s about the future really isn’t it? About our future and the future of music and the future of humans and machines and actually, where before I heard grating, lean machine sounds maybe, just maybe, these are the sounds of a better future where man and machine have found harmony together, just like I can always hear in the feedback of an electric guitar. I don’t know, it could have been the gin and tonics at 33,000 feet, but I really enjoyed both tracks, I was lulled into a little happy modernist (post-modern?) bubble!

So, there you have it, I don’t think you need to be doing 500 miles an hour on a couple of gins to enjoy this, but it certainly helped me to finally ‘get’ this style of music, and whenever, wherever I can find a place in my heart for something new, then it’s a good day!

Matt Rhodie

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