Edgar Froese - Introduction to the Ambient Highway

Out of the blue really comes this 5 CD set from Edgar "W" Froese. Well, not quite – it's actually 4 CD's plus this album which is a compilation of the 4. And it's not really a set, they are 5 discreet CDs packaged in separate jewel cases, though visually there is a common theme. The case "for" cites the convenience of being able to purchase the set in stages or selectively, the case "against" is that they couldn't be arsed going through the imagination or expense to package them in a decent box set, and/or wanted to maximise profit. As an aside, with the lavish appointment of many DVD box sets appearing now (anyone for the 'Battlestar Galactica' series encased in a Cylon mask?), the standard of CD packaging is becoming very two dimensional. My opinion is that this should have been a box set, perhaps with the option of paying an extra tenner for limited edition containment within an artificial-Froese-head. Though looking at the Dusty Springfield impersonation on 'Ages', perhaps not.

So musically what can you expect? Well the CDs feature either a) Straight excerpts from past albums b) Re-recorded excerpts from past albums or c) new stuff. From initial soundings, "re-recorded" seems to mean extra textures being layered over the original piece (or "tangentization" as it's popularly known) and this treatment seems to have been reserved for anything from his 6 early solo works 'Aqua', 'Epsilon in Malaysian Pale', 'Macula Transfer', 'Ages', 'Stuntman' and 'Pinnacles'. Strangely unmentioned in the sleeve notes is the excellent compilation 'Beyond the Storm' double CD released in the mid 90's, and this too has been dipped into to bolster the track count, these pieces being presented unaltered (actually it looks like most if not all the new material on 'Beyond the Storm' is presented somewhere on the subsequent 4 CDs). In terms of purely new material there's around 19 or 20 tracks scattered across the volumes.

Having taken the opportunity to peruse the Froese CDs in my collection it was a surprise to find I had all his solo "studio" CDs so I'm obviously a fan! From memory he did at least one soundtrack 'Kamikaze' (which I had on vinyl and lent to a friend 10 or more years ago – Paul, if you're reading this please can I have it back!).

So much blabbing and yet I haven't said anything about the music itself. I'll go into more detail in the individual volumes, but I will say this. Listening to these pieces reminded me what a prodigious Electronic Music artist Edgar Froese is. Sure the more recent tracks don't have the gravitas of the earlier works, but generally I found this a very enjoyable album. The 'Stuntman' and 'Pinnacles' excerpts stand out, the tangentization does them no favours but it is Froese's own handiwork, and if he want's to do a bit of painting- by-numbers over the Mona Lisa it's his prerogative. Some of the other newer cuts also stand up to close scrutiny. Overall I liked this album. So there's no reason not to buy it really… except that you're gonna buy the other 4 as well so what's the point?