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Mr. Ehlers is one of the most respected and diverse names in the electronic music scene. He’s one of the few people who never repeats himself. He’s recorded minimal house music as Betrieb and experimental music as Auch, He’s recorded electronic pop with Maerz; his Plays album deconstructed freejazzhead Albert Ayler and blues guitarist Robert Johnson and experimented. Now continuing in the same tradition as Plays, this album offers us a strange and forgotten blues/folk album as if time travelled to future from 1900’s USA. It’s a mature release, for headphones and music lovers and not for the hip crowd. I’m amazed with the micro textural and emotional intensity and his & contributers ability to do something like this and redefine blues with electronic precision, plus he’s from Germany!

Kloster’s ‘ as the water covers the sea’ is a perfect companion to this crackling bluesy folk album. Why? I don’t know, maybe because of the spoken part and the idea of Rapture brings USA to my mind. However Kloster is not from USA but Denmark. This song has touched me upon first listen, it’s as shocking as a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a short track with background noises, where a terrified (?) young child describes the vision of The Rapture that God gave him, describing chariots of fire, repeating words with excitement. I’m sure if this track were played in a sermon at a Puritan church, most of the people would cry and pray at the same time, and it would affect everyone so deeply that they’d really stop doing everything and wait for the Rapture. A masterful and touching song, however please don’t play it to your religious friends!

Here’s the perfect closer to today’s post, a gospel themed song by none other than another diverse genius Uwe Schmidt as Geeez ‘n’ Gosh. GnG is one of the tens of pseudonym’s Uwe Schmidt aka Atom Heart / Senor Coconut has. He’s released 2 albums using this name, and this track is one of the best tracks on the second album Nobody Knows released on Mille Plateaux in 2002. The song starts with a gospel about Jesus and then gets funky!.

Ekkehard Ehlers - O Death (excerpt)
Ekkehard Ehlers - Strange Things
Ekkehard Ehlers - Plays John Cassavetes
Ekkehard Ehlers - Plays Albert Ayler
Geeez ‘n’ Gosh - We call on him
Kloster - As the water covers the sea