HEMATIC SUNSETS

RESTOCKED, last copies...Awesome Asmus Tietchens LP housed in a beautiful cover and blue vinyl limited edition "Every now and then Asmus Tietchens leaves his serious self behind, like an outta body experience, and enters the Aroma Club. Somewhere in the 80s he released four synth based LPs on Sky (and subsequently recorded on CD by Die Stadt), and then in the last years of the old millennium he returned to playing this kind of music on cheesy keyboards as Hematic Sunsets, producing by now, including this one, four LPs and two 7"s, curiously the latter two being christmas singles. This new one, the first LP not released by himself, sees another thirteen tracks of this music, but with lots of variation. 'Kopf Geben' has a nice banging rhythm to it, whereas 'Tristesse Aromatique' is a modern electronic exercise in meditation. 'Eskapaden Am Tischtelefon' sounds like a Kid Baltan update. This fine pop album moves along many lines, but makes a very consistent impression. It proofs the mastership of Tietchens in U musik - unterhaltung that is, entertainment, whereas he is best known for E musik - ernste musik. This week he's doing a concert in the Ludwig Museum in Cologne if you want to have a glimpse of that. Great album, and can't wait for a fifth one. (FdW - Vital Weekly)