Blast Unicorn: Van Halo

Like the band name and album title, the music of Blast Unicorn, a project composed of German musician Alexander Paul Dowerk (touch guitars, acoustic guitars, clavinola, programming, synths) and Switzerland sound designer Tobias Reber (synths, drum programming, samples, electronics, voice) is hard to define. In the words of Trey Gunn of King Crimson fame, "that is some of the most fucked-up stuff I have heard in a very long time!" To that I say ditto as this is a very tough nut to crack which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is some of the most 'unique' music I have heard in a while and for that we should all be grateful.

Dowerk is an excellent touch guitarist as his fingers literally fly across the fret board of his eight string guitar. The music is very electronic and the drum and synth programming is very good. In fact, some of the drum rhythms are very powerful, sounding almost organic in nature. There are eighteen tracks here so doing a track by track review is out of the question. The songs are short, some less than a minute with the longest at just over four minutes. The cool thing is how the music changes directions as the rhythmic patterns diverge and converge, making for a totally unique collage of electronic sounds and off kilter soundscapes. Overall, Van Halo is a pretty heavy effort as the music is packed in dense layers of electronics so there is definitely a metal aspect to the duo's sound.

Blast Unicorn are riding the cusp of cutting edge electronic/avant-garde music with Van Halo. For music fans who like to live outside the box, where the lines of categorization become blurred, Blast Unicorn should fill that niche quite nicely.

Track Listing:
1. Van Halo
2. Just Chillin'
3. Abteil
4. Gedankenstrich
5. Blast Unicorn: Final Exam
6. Waterclimber
7. Ghostmodern
8. König Kaiser Kingdom Castle
9. Music Face
10. Ausgeburt of Love
11. Nonnenfinsternis
12. Hack in the City
13. Bobtail Builder
14. Überhaupt
15. Hitfall
16. Schattenspender
17. King Crumbles
18. Godshaped Ice Cream

Added: May 17th 2015
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Band's Official Site
Hits: 2021
Language: english

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