Remember the times when almost every new album was fresh and exciting? When ABC came glamouring around the corner with “The Lexicon of Love”, Orange Juice made us sing along to “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever”, Adam & The Ants suddenly went all rather piratty with “Prince Charming”, Human League dared us with “Dare”, Soft Cell opened their seedy “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret”, Yazoo took us “Upstairs at Eric’s” and Songs like New Order’s “Blue Monday” kept us tied to the dancefloor? And what does this all have to do with Airborne Toxic Event from Los Angeles? They don’t sound like any of the aforementioned bands at all, but their songs are somehow transforming the spirit of audacity, renovation and unspoiled boldness that made these former records so action-packed and stimulating.

Mikel Jollet is a fantastic singer with the grandezza of the truly great performer, the band’s lyrics are witty and sophisticated and their music sounds sometimes like a mixture between Pulp and Bruce Springsteen while always being completey independent, unique, touching and as teenage-anthem-like as great rock music can get: Their album that’s simply titled “Airborne Toxic Event” is without question as important as Nirvana’s “Nevermind” (but vertainly much more uplifting) or Blondie’s “Parallel Lines” (with just the same sense for great pop-tunes). “The Airborne Toxic Event” is by far the best rock album in 2009 (although it was first released in 2008) and songs like “Sometime Around Midnight”, “Wishing Well”, “Does This Mean You’re Moving On?” or “The Winning Side” are evidence that contemporary rock music can still be as moving, exciting and stirring as in the good old days of 1982!

Bob Dylan was definitely right when he sang "The times, they are a-changin'" in 1964... and if it comes to music business, times have changed pretty much within the last few years. Having grown-up in the heydays of Punk, I totally and wholeheartedly agree that this change was indeed necessary, that it's about time that greedy record companies have to worry about their prospective revenues and realise that they cannot treat their customers like cash cows.

Being a musician myself, I'm torn between the two sides: on the one hand the internet and its possibilities of sharing and distributing music (but if we want to call a spade a spade we should include a term like "illegal downloading", too!) has turned out to be nothing less than a big "Up Yours!" towards the record companies' pricing policy, but on the other hand it has also caused a lot of severe problems for the kind of really devoted musicians and labels trying to make a living from what they're doing.

Experts affirm that today there's only 1 % of legal purchasing of songs and albums, which means that there is only 1 in a 100 songs that the artist or his record company actually gets paid for - and you can't run a business on that terms. That's why our label Reartone Records simply can't afford to release the long awaited Antichrisis album "The Legacy Remains": there's absolutely no chance of breaking even with new independent releases of that kind, hence I totally agree and understand Reartone's decision although I certainly regret that "The Legacy Remains" will now become some kind of "lost album", and that all the work we've put into its production so far was in vain.

Reartone cannot release any new albums as long as the aformentioned situation stays like this - and that doesn't affect Reartone Records only: Even a successful independent company like Chikago's Touch & Go Records with bands like TV On The Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs or CocoRosie has to reduce its output because they just can't cover the costs any longer. Mac McCaughan of Merge Records commented this with the words: "If a company that did everything the right way can't survive in this environment ... then who can?"

But what does all that mean for Antichrisis? Well, there won't be any CD or album releases in the near future at all (unless another label would be interested in signing Antichrisis). As aforesaid, I can understand Reartone's decision and I totally agree with them, hence there's no bad blood between Reartone and Antichrisis. If the economoical situation should change, there's no obstacle for resuming our collaboration.

In the meantime (or for the future - who knows) , Antichrisis will be stripped down to being a 1-man-project again like it used to be in the early days of "Cantara Anachoreta". I'll be doing everything on my own again including mixing and production, and as soon as new songs are finished I'll make them available on this website via streaming audio. I don't have any idea at the moment if there'll be a way making these new tracks available for purchase, because I don't like any of the current online distribution possibilities for independent artists: there are too many different internet platforms with too many different terms and conditions, which makes it difficult to work time- and cost-saving. But as soon as there's a proper solution on the horizon, I'll be trying to provide a good and easy way for acquiring Antichrisis' songs by purchase.

Anyway, I doubt that there will ever be an album by Antichrisis again, as I really don't believe in albums any more: they are a thing of the past, and the future's definitley in releasing separate songs as soon as they are ready and leave it to the customer which individual song he or she wants to have - it should be up to them if they want to burn it on CD or not. Online distribution is the future of any multimedia content, whether we like it or not - but it's all still in its infancy!

So "The Legacy Remains" will possibly never be released and Antichrisis will be reduced to being a 1-man-project again. I definitely won't stop making music, because it's simply such a vital and important part of my life. Of course I could now finish the songs of "The Legacy Remains" on my own, but to tell you the truth it just wouldn't feel right, because these songs were the collective achievement of a band that unfortunately doesn't exist any longer, and it would be quite unfair towards my former band members if I'd release those songs single-handedly now.

The reason that the band has now ceased to exist is due to the fact that we've never been a live group but a studio band. And as all band members are living far away from each other in different parts of Germany, the only occasion we got together was when we met in Reartone's Bluehouse studio for rehearsing and recording. So the end of the collaboration with Reartone Records implies the end of the studio band Antichrisis, too. But I'm glad that both Naex (uilleann pipes) and Frank (vocals) have assured that they would love to contribute their input to Antichrisis in the future, too, so there'll be still some guest muscians around!

Nevertheless my deepest gratitude goes to Jens Bachmann (former guitarist and producer), Tilo Rockstroh (former keyboarder and sound engineer) and Jens-Nils Kuge (former Drummer): these guys did such a great job for Antichrisis on "Perfume" and "A Legacy of Love Mark II", and I'm sure that "The Legacy Remains" would have confirmed what outstanding and unique musicians they are. It was an honour and great pleasure to work with them, and I sincerely appreciate the time we've been recording together.

A new chapter of Antichrisis is aborning - back to the basics, in a manner of speaking, and these basics will sound a lot like "Ocean's Too Wide" or "Crossing The Line" (already available on this website's Music section). And as I don't have to focus on album productions and studio sessions any more, there'll probably be some new tracks here quite soon... so stay tuned!

Bob Dylan hatte recht, als er 1964 davon sang, daß die Zeiten sich ändern würden - und in Bezug auf die Musikbranche haben sich die Zeiten in den vergangenen Jahren sogar ziemlich drastisch verändert. Doch da ich tief im Herzen noch immer die Werte des Punk zu würdigen weiss, bin ich mir bewusst, daß es höchste Zeit war, dass den Branchenriesen im Musik-Business endlich mal der Stinkefinger dafür gezeigt wurde, daß sie ihre Kundschaft seit Einführung des CD-Formats im Grunde genommen nur noch als Melkkühe betrachteten; daß an veralteten Preismodellen und Vertriebsstrukturen festgehalten und das Internet komplett verschlafen wurde.

Als Musiker bin ich jedoch zugleich zwischen zwei Positionen hin- und hergerissen: Einerseits hat das Internet mit seinen Möglichkeiten des Verfügbarmachens und Vertreibens von Musik (doch sollten an dieser Stelle auch Begriffe wie "Tauschbörsen" oder "illegale Downloads" genannt werden) den großen Plattenfirmen eindeutig die Grenzen ihrer verblendeten Hochpreis- und Veröffentlichungspolitik aufgezeigt; andererseits leiden gerade diejenigen Musiker und Labels, die wirklich noch mit Herzblut bei der Sache sind, besonders unter den daraus resultierenden schwindenden Einkünften, da es wie im Rest des Wirtschaftslebens die Geringerverdienenden eben immer wesentlich härter trifft, sobald der Kuchen, den es zu verteilen gibt, kleiner wird.

Experten gehen davon aus, daß auf einen einzigen legal erworbenen Song mittlerweile 99 illegale Downloads und Kopien kommen (und darunter fallen z. B. auch solch vermeintlich harmlose Geschichten wie "mal eben ein Album für einen Freund auf CD brennen"). Das bedeutet, daß Künstler und Plattenfirmen lediglich für 1 % ihres Outputs überhaupt noch Geld erhalten: Auf dieser Basis lässt sich auf Dauer leider kein Geschäft betreiben. Das ist auch der Grund, warum unser bisheriges Label Reartone Records es sich momentan nicht mehr leisten kann, das lang erwartete Antichrisis-Album "The Legacy Remains" auf den Markt zu bringen.

Für ein Label von der Größe von Reartone Records gibt es derzeit keine Möglichkeit, in einem wirtschaftlich vernünftigen Rahmen mit Produktionen von unbekannten Bands noch einigermaßen kostendeckend zu arbeiten - von Gewinnerzielung ganz zu schweigen. Daher kann ich die Entscheidung von Reartone Records bestens verstehen, auch wenn es mir natürlich leid tut, daß "The Legacy Remains" somit unveröffentlicht bleiben wird und die Arbeit, die wir uns in den letzten Jahren mit diesem Album gemacht hatten, somit umsonst war.

Reartone Records kann es sich - zumindest, so lange die derzeitige Situation im Musikbusiness anhält - nicht länger leisten, neue Alben relativ unbekannter Bands auf den Markt zu bringen. Mit diesem Problem steht Reartone Records allerdings keinesfalls alleine da: Selbst ein äußerst erfolgreiches Label wie Touch and Go Records aus Chikago, das z. B. mit TV On The Radio, CocoRosie und den Yeah Yeah Yeahs 3 Bands unter Vertrag hat, die bereits den kommerziellen Durchbruch geschafft hatten, muss seine Vertriebstätigkeiten aufgrund der eingangs beschriebenen Situation wieder drastisch einschränken. Mac McCaughan (Merge Records) kommentierte dies treffenderweise mit den Worten: "Wenn eine Firma, die alles richtig gemacht hat, in diesem Geschäft nicht überleben kann ... wer dann?"

Doch was bedeutet dies für Antichrisis? Zunächst einmal wird es in naher Zukunft vermutlich keinerlei CD oder Album-Veröffentlichungen mehr geben (es sei denn, ein anderes Label wäre daran interessiert, Antichrisis unter Vertrag zu nehmen). Wie bereits erwähnt, kann ich die Entscheidung von Reartone Records voll und ganz nachvollziehen, und genau aus diesem Grund fand die Trennung von Reartone Records auch in gegenseitigem Einvernehmen statt. Sollten sich die wirtschaftlichen Voraussetzungen grundlegend ändern, gäbe es sowohl für Reartone Records als auch für Antichrisis somit keinerlei Hinderungsgrund, die bisherige gute Zusammenarbeit fortzusetzen.

In der Zwischenzeit (oder für die weitere Zukunft) werde ich Antichrisis wie in den Tagen von "Cantara Anachoreta" als 1-Mann-Projekt weiterführen, d. h. ich werde wieder alles inklusive Mix und Produktion im Alleingang machen und die Resultate dieser Arbeit in Form von Streaming Audio auf www.antichrisis.net veröffentlichen. Momentan fehlt mir noch ein funktionierendes Konzept für den Online-Vertrieb dieser Songs, da mir die gegenwärtig verfügbaren Lösungen noch zu kompliziert und unübersichtlich erscheinen, doch sobald sich eine neue, einfach funktionierende sowie zeit- und kostensparende Vertriebsmöglichkeit abzeichnen sollte, werde ich mich selbstverständlich bemühen, eine entsprechende Möglichkeit zum Erwerb der Songs zu schaffen.

Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich meine Zweifel daran, daß es von Antichrisis jemals wieder Alben im traditionellen Sinne geben wird, denn in Zeiten des Online-Vertriebs ist das Album als solches eine nicht mehr zeitgemäße Veröffentlichungsform. Meiner Ansicht nach liegt die Zukunft in der Veröffentlichung einzelner Songs und bei denen der Hörer dann selbst entscheiden kann, ob sie ihm gefallen und ob er sie somit käuflich erwerben möchte. Selbstverständlich sollte es dem Hörer völlig freigestellt sein, aus diesen einzeln gekauften Songs ein individuelles Album zusammenzustellen und auf CD zu brennen, sofern er dies möchte. Im Vertrieb digitaler Daten über das Internet liegt nun mal die Zukunft jeglicher Multimedia-Inhalte, ganz egal, ob man dies nun gutheißt oder nicht - doch leider stecken diese Vertriebsformen noch immer in ihren Kinderschuhen.

Somit wird "The Legacy Remains" wohl niemals veröffentlicht werden, aber Antichrisis wird auf jeden Fall als Solo-Projekt weiter bestehen. Ich werde trotz dieser Entwicklung nicht damit aufhören, Songs zu schreiben und aufzunehmen, denn dazu ist die Musik viel zu sehr ein Teil meiner selbst. Natürlich könnte ich das Songmaterial von "The Legacy Remains" auch alleine ferigstellen, doch das würde sich für mich nicht richtig anfühlen, denn dieses Album war das Resultat der Zusammenarbeit einer Band, die nun leider nicht mehr existiert, und es wäre meinen vormaligen Bandmitgliedern gegenüber unfair, dieses gemeinsam erarbeitete Material im Alleingang zu veröffentlichen.

Dass die Band nicht mehr weiterbestehen kann, hat schlicht und einfach damit zu tun, daß wir nie eine Live-, sondern eine Studio-Band waren: Wir trafen uns im Bluehouse Studio von Reartone Records, um dort an den Songs zu arbeiten und aufzunehmen, doch da es diese Option nun nicht mehr gibt und alle vormaligen Bandmitglieder sehr weit verstreut leben, bedeutet das Ende der Zusammenarbeit mit Reartone Records leider auch das Ende der derzeitgen Bandkonstellation. Nichtsdestotrotz freut es mich, daß sich sowohl Näx (Uilleann Pipes) als auch Frank (Vocals) sofort bereit erklärten, auch an künftigen Songs weiter mitzuwirken; es wird also trotz des Solo-Projekt-Charakters, den Antichrisis von nun an hat, immer noch Gastmusiker zu hören geben.

Bei dieser Gelegenheit möchte ich allen ehemaligen Bandmitgliedern meine tiefe Dankbarkeit aussprechen: Jens Bachmann für seine herausragende Gitarrenarbeit und Produzententätigkeit, Tilo Rockstroh für seine genialen Keyboard-Arrangements und makellose Tontechnik sowie Jens-Nils Kuge für sein überaus präzises und fantastisches Schlagzeugspiel: Sie alle haben Antichrisis auf "Perfume" und "A Legacy of Love Mark II" auf unnachahmliche Weise geprägt, und ich bin mir sicher, daß auch "The Legacy Remains" erneut unter Beweis gestellt hätte, welche großartige und wunderbare Musiker sie sind: Es war mir große Freude und Ehre, mit ihnen arbeiten zu dürfen!

Darüber hinaus möchte ich natürlich auch Steffi Breiting herzlich für ihre Bereitschaft, bei Antichrisis mitzuwirken, danken, auch wenn letztendlich keine Aufnahmen mehr mit ihr zustande kamen.

Für Antichrisis hat ein neues Kapitel begonnen: Zurück zu den Wurzeln, sozusagen; und diese Wurzeln werden verdammt nach Songs wie "Ocean's Too Wide" oder "Crossing The Line" klingen, die ihr schon jetzt in der Musik-Sektion dieser Website hören könnt. Und da ich mich in Zukunft nicht mehr um Albumproduktionen oder Studiotermine kümmern muss, werden schon bald weitere Taten folgen.

Hands down, those lyrics are mindbogglingly daft… but, hey, we’re talking about pop music here and not about the Novel Price in Literature. And as bassist Charles Cave admits: “I felt as though I couldn’t write about anything personal, so I would make up semi-comical stories that weren’t really important to anyone, not even me.” Well done, lad - lines like

“Could it tremble stars from moon light skies
Could it drag a tear from your cold eyes
I live on the right side, I sleep in the left
That’s why everything’s got to be love or death”
or
“The moonlight licked the face of danger
Innocence made us like soldiers
Untouchable and golden
The quilt of darkness dotted with our teardrops”

definitely do have a lot of comical potential, but that’s not the point. The point is: White Lies introduced fun to a genre that once started with bands like Joy Divison, Bauhaus, Modern English or This Mortal Coil, hence everyone’s playing this kind of darkish New Wave stuff was supposed to be dead serious about life, more preferably death and all the melodramatic rest.

Younger bands like Editors or Interpol picked up the pieces by simply copying the paradigm and graveness of that genre - but then this bunch from Ealing appeared on the scene with songs that sounded pretty much like Ultravox between 1979 and 1986, combined with a small grain of Joy Divisiousness and a little bit of U2’s pompousness - and the kids just loved it, which is something that the critics can’t stand at all. If one’s playing that kind of music, one should at least pretend to be serious about it!

But White Lies don’t care: Instead they’re writing good and catchy tunes, hence listening to their debut album “To lose My Life” is a nice and pleasant experience. Of course all comparisons to Joy Division are foredoomed: There are definitely no masterpieces like “Atmosphere”, “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” or “Transmission” to be found on the White Lies’ debut album, and singer Harry McVeigh doesn’t sound like Ian Curtis at all (in fact he doesn’t even try to, which speaks in his favour), but “To Lose My Life”, “The Price of Love” and “Death” are really cool pop-songs, anyway. Unlike their competitors, White Lies have found a new and refreshing way to deal with the Post-Punk genre and are succesfully getting away with it - and if you don’t mind brummagem and pretentious lyrics, you will have a pretty good time with this album.

Admittedly this dreaded Eurovision Song Contest is largely a rather embarrassing event where cheesiness meets scurrility in enormous amounts - but from time to time even this gathering of musical failure confessions surprisingly gets hit by great songs: In 2004 it was Ukrainian singer Ruslana Lyzhicko with her early-Adam-Ant-meets-Xena-the-Warrior-Princess uptempo disco-hybrid “Wild Dances”, which was a really good dance track, and this year it’s a bunch or portuguese buskers called Flor-de-Lis with their beautiful folk ballad “Todas As Ruas Do Amor”. As my Portuguese is just as bad as my Ukrainian, I don’t really know what “Todas As Ruas Do Amor” is all about, but it really doesn’t matter: This catchy and enchanting song comes down like a warm shower of summer rain, and once percussion and accordion start giving the song its magical spin, you’re completely hooked by this tune’s superb musical quality.

Seems that this is simply the difference between a real musicians playing a real song with real instruments instead of those overall dressed-to-kill but surplus and shallow show-off ditties like Svetlana Loboda’s “Be My Valentine”, which I nevertheless have to be thankful for because never before has the name “Antichrisis” been mentioned that often on TV like last night when she performed this song: See the world’s biggest female Antichrisis-Fan here!

The Eurovision Song Contest Finale will take place on 16th May 2009, and I sincerely do hope that Flor-de-Lis are going to win, because even if they don’t mention Antichrisis anywhere in their song, “Todas As Ruas Do Amor” is by far the best track of the entire contest and therefore deserves international breakthrough.

I always had some kind of soft spot for Depeche Mode: I loved their first two albums “Speak & Spell” and “A Broken Frame”, but somehow I’ve lost my interest after “Music for the Masses”: though they still were a great band for singles, their later albums didn’t work for me any more.

But when I heard “Wrong” a few weeks ago I thought I’d give their new album “Sounds of the Universe” a chance because “Wrong” is a really stomping and pushing hit single that I didn’t expect from these old Basildon chaps any more… but to be honest: “Wrong” along with “Fragile Tension” are merely exceptional tracks because the rest of this album is just terribly boring. Depeche Mode got caught in the trap of many well-established bands: they end up playing run-to-the-mill music for a run-to-the-mill market because they simply dont’ have to achieve anything any more. U2 got out of that trap with exploring new musical shores on “No Line on the Horizon”, but that’s an attitude that Depeche Mode haven’t got discovered yet.

We went to the Musikmesse in Frankfurt on Friday the 3rd, and it was a really cool experience: the guys at the small Spectrasonics booth were very friendly and charming although they had to deal with a few hardware problems, and we also had much fun with the Stevie from Fender and Jens from Laboga and VGS. Seems that my favourite electric guitars are still those of Burns London and Paul Reed Smith, but I also fell in love with the very beautifully handcrafted instruments from Zerberus Guitars: fantastic guitars at a fantastic price. Nevertheless I was also impressed by Moog's new and innovative guitar with its awesome new full sustain mode, and if it comes to acoustic guitars I'm still a big fan of Takamine.

The guys from TC-Helicon also had some cool new hardware to present, and all in all we were more than busy trying to get a  glimpse on everything that caught our interest, but it's simply impossible to watch all in one day. When returning home in the evening, all we wished for were our beds and no more of those dreaded heavy metal guitar-solos!

I never liked The Libertines that much because they didn’t sound exciting to me: nothing new under the sun than just another hype. And The Babyshambles were nothing more than mere shambles - but suddenly Peter Doherty comes up with a really good album (Grace/Wastelands) and a brilliant single called “The Last of The English Roses”, which just proves the fact that this guy needs a band like a fish needs a bicycle. Good album, great single - keep it up!

Just stumbled across Glasvegas’ brilliant debut album: definitely one of this year’s best performances containing soon-to-be-classics like “Lonesome Swan”, “Daddy’s Gone” and “Geraldine”. Highly recommended to everyone being into The Jesus & Mary Chain’s first two albums, though Glasvegas’ lyrics are much better and their music does not contain as many 60’s resemblances as those of the Reids’. Great songs, intelligent lyrics and a lush sound the reminds of the good old C86-days.

Hey, U2’s new album really came as a surprise to me: they’ve tried to come up with something new and one can easily sense that they didn’t make the mistake of just repeating themselves, instead they’ve tried to widen their sound. OK, songs like “Get on Your Boots” and “Stand Up Comedy” are simply dispensable, but the rest of the album is  stupendously good and in some cases even exciting like “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”, “Cedars of Lebanon”, “Fez” or “White as Snow”. All in all an album that I wouldn’t have expected after U2’s last mediocre releases “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”: Great sound, great production and a daring spirit - well done, guys.

Leider ein wirklich wichtiges Anliegen von Terre des Femmes. Weitere Informationen zu dem Thema findet ihr in diesem Artikel und natürlich auf der Website von Terre des Femmes.

A new Springsteen-album is out, and it received a lot of bad reviews already. To be honest, “Working On A Dream” is not one of Bruce’s strongest albums, especially if compared to last year’s masterpiece “Magic”. Springsteen himself said ‘Towards the end of recording “Magic”, excited by the return to pop production sounds, I continued writing. When my friend producer Brendan O’Brien heard the new songs, he said, ‘Let’s keep going.’ All the songs were written quickly, we usually used one of our first few takes, and we all had a blast making this one from beginning to end.” I think this statement explains the main problem of “Working On A Dream”: Whereas “Magic” contained the blend selection of songs, the leftovers of those sessions found their way on “Working on a Dream” - but even second quality Springsteen-songs can be much better than anything else in today‘s rock music.

So everyone not being a retarded colour-blind 80ies-devotee will agree that the cheesy album cover is definitely one of the worst that any half-witted artwork designer could ever come up with - but who cares? It‘s the music that matters, not the album cover and if anyone is to blame, than it‘s the designer and not Mr. Springsteen.

But after the visual drawback let‘s turn to the audible side:

The album opens with “Outlaw Pete”: a very good choice, as this song is a perfect mixture of Springsteen’s early days (say “Greetings from Asbury Park” and “The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle”-era) and his later, more modern sound. Very epic, very catchy - a perfect opener.

I’m sure that the next track “My Lucky Day” will work just fine when performed live: hard stomping good times Rock ‘n’ Roll - but we all know that Bruce can do much better than that. To me it sounds a bit like an outtake of his “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town”-era.

“Working On A Dream” is the album’s single, and it’s a good but also bland pop song. I’m sure that everybody would like this track if it would have appeared for example on the next Tom Petty-album… but as aforesaid: Bruce can do so much better than that. A little bit disappointing if you ask me.

“Queen Of The Supermarket” has received many spiteful comments by rock critics so far - but come on: I know those sophisticated blokes spend their lifes in the hippest bars with the in-crowd and love to make clever remarks about what they think is relevant in life… but there are real people in the real world who have to work hard for their living, and these people can’t afford to go to sushi bars or Starbuck’s, instead they’re having a cheap pint in the next pub and they actually have to go shopping in supermarkets - and maybe some ordinary customer there might fall in love with a queen of the supermarket even if a company cap covers her hair: nothing wrong with that. So everybody accusing Springsteen for this song’s lyrics should ask himselt if he might have become a bit too posh to remember what real life is all about - and maybe it’s Bruce’s big credit that despite being a rock star he can still remember what it’s like to be part of the common people. Musically it’s one of the best songs on the album, exuding the E Street Band’s warm and brilliant cinematic sound all over the place.

“What Love Can Do” is a very haunting and catchy piece of music - but as I watched the sessions video contained on the deluxe version of this CD where Bruce played an acoustic version of this song to his fellow musicians, I realised that “What Love Can Do” would have been a much more intense song if it would have been recorded exactly that way: just plain vanilla with Bruce’s voice and his acoustic guitar. Guess “What Love Can Do” would have been a good job for a producer like Rick Rubin, whereas Brendan O’Brien’s production fails to put the song in the right spot here.

I’ve never been much of a Beach Boys fan, hence “This Life” doesn’t catch my attention with all it’s vocal references to the Californian surf gang. Nice piece of work for proving that the E Street Band is capable of playing a song that sounds pretty much like the Beach Boys, but nothing more.

“Good Eye” is a raw blues track that would have made a perfect song for the White Stripes, but definitely not for the E Street Band: Their sound’s too perfect, too big and too technicolour-like to perform a piece of mangy black & white low-fi Delta Blues like this, hence this song just silts up as it goes along.

Springsteen has always been a good C&W-singer, and so “Tomorrow Never Knows” (not to be confused with the great Beatles-track of the same name) is a very nice and sweet C&W-ballad… maybe a bit too nice and neat, but what the heck: the truckers will love it anyway.

“Life Itself” is definitely an album highlight: dedicated to the late Danny Federici, this track shows a dark and thoughtful Springsteen, both awesome and touching: Bruce at his best.

“Kingdom Of Days” seems like a bit of self-plagiarism to me: Springsteen quotes himself and in spite of the song’s beautiful string arrangement it still sounds like a Springsteen tribute band trying to be the real thing - not my cup of tea.

“Surprise Surprise” sure is a surprise to me: innocent and simple birthday lyrics disguised by a song that would have made both The Byrds and The Jam proud if they’d have written it. Despite its naive lyrics another great track that in my opinion would have made a much better single than “Working On A Dream”. And why shouldn’t anyone be allowed to write a better birthday song than boring old “Happy Birthday To You”?

Funny enough, the most outstanding tracks of this album are to be found at the end. “The Last Carnival” goes so deep that it simply sends shivers down my spine: A pure and fervent acoustic ballad with such a beautiful and dreamlike backing choir that it leaves the listener completely flabbergasted. Again Springsteen proves that he’s often best when exploring his more contemplative side… and the same goes for the album’s bonus track “The Wrestler”: Even darker and more abandoned than “The Last Carnival”; there’s no light at the end of this song’s tunnel. Another soundtrack by Bruce that’s almost as good as “Dead Man Walking”: simply awesome!

So what have we here? “Working On A Dream” is definitily not as good as “Magic” was - but on the other hand it’s not as bad as many critics insist. Sure there are some songs on this album that wouldn’t necessarily have to be released, but there are also tracks like “Life Itself”, “The Last Carnival” or “Outlaw Pete” which are simply outstanding and evidencing that Springsteen’s still one of the best song wrighters in today’s rock music. So all in all I’m a very satisfied customer, knowing that no artist is capable of releasing a masterpiece like “Magic” every year… Good job, Bruce - and I can’t wait to see you live in Germany in July!

Last year was definitely a good year for softsynth-aficionados like me: first we had G-Force's significant update to their famous M-Tron called M-Tron Pro, which offers much more sounds and tweaking possibilities than one could have ever expected from a Mellotron-replica, then came Spectrasonics with their groundbreaking Omnisphere (which will receive another important update on January 26th with more than 2000 new patches - and don't ask me when I'll ever find the time to check them all out!), and finally in December Camel Audio released their long awaited sample manipulation synthesizer Alchemy, which I had the chance to work with during the last two weeks.

First I should confess that building sounds from scratch isn't exactly my cup of tea: I love to have a proper library of inspiring sounds that I can tweak and work with, and in these terms Alchemy is simply gorgeous even if not as packed and well-assorted as Omnisphere, but then Alchemy doesn't require 40 GB of free space on your hard drive like Omnisphere does, instead it just asks for reasonable 2 GB.

Alchemy is equiped with over 300 presets sorted in categories like Arpeggiated, Bass, Brass, Drums, Guitars, Keys, Leads, Loops, Mallets, Organs, Pads, Sound Effects, Soundscapes, Strings, Synth, Vocals and Woodwinds, but don't expect any "traditional" sounds: that's definitely not what Alchemy is all about, moreover it aims to create new and outstanding sounds - no wonder, because it allows you to tweak and manipulate every aspect of any given sound, and best of all it also allows you to import your own audio files and put them through its additive, spectral or granular grinder... only the sky is the limit of what you can do to any sound snippet loitering on your hard drive! To find out more about Alchemy's numerous possibilities take a look at Camel Audio's tutorial videos here.

I was most impressed by Alchemy's arpeggiated sounds, its drums, pads, loops and strings: these sounds are so unique and inspiring that I could hardly stop myself from fiddling about with them for hours and hours - really great stuff! I only wished the guys at Camel Audio would have equiped Alchemy with more than just 10 drum sets, because each of them is a case of sui generis and high musical quality.

Alchemy's sound effects and soundscapes on the other hand are the categories that I won't have much use for, but then it's a bit unfair to judge strange sounds like these after I've worked my way through Omnisphere's sound library just a few weeks ago: Sure Alchemy's soundscapes and sound effects do sound interesting and vivid, and there's also a lot of morphing going on, but I think Omnisphere remains simply unexcelled concerning weird and eerie atmospheres and sounds - but keep in mind that someone else might see (or hear) things different, because these categories are of much more use for composers & producers of movie scores and computer game tracks than for your average and humble musician.

All in all Alchemy is an extraordinary and wonderful softsynth offering myriads of editing possibilities that even Omnisphere can't provide. It works like a charm, contains hundreds of unique and inspiring sounds, is expandable (CamelAudio are currently offering 2 expansion sets on their website and there will be more to come) and put up for sale at more than reasonable price. It only took me just one hour until I had to realise that Alchemy will become one of my favourite softsynths! The only problem is that after working with Alchemy, most of my other software synthesizers do sound so bloody boooooring...