The press material for
Triola im Fuenftonraum made allusions to home listening, when the album is mostly about movement...in a car...preferably a fast one...on a muggy spring day. This might catch followers of producer
Joerg Burger off guard. Up until this point, the producer's
Triola tracks -- limited to three consecutive appearances on
Kompakt's yearly
Pop Ambient series and a spot on
Leichtes Hoeren's
Teil 1 -- were free-floating
ambient washouts (albeit wondrous free-floating
ambient washouts) with no pulse. This album, on the other hand, is beat-driven, though still resolutely
ambient -- more an update of
Burger's lushest
Bionaut tracks, only fully engaging instead of mildly diverting. The soft, synthetic hand drums and tranquil vapors of
"Leuchtturm," from
Pop Ambient 2003, remain untouched and begin the album. Two other tracks that might sound familiar receive dynamic overhauls, now supported with quick dance rhythms and additional layers of synth gauze; the wispy flute trills and lightly flickering keys of
"AG Penthouse," for instance, are melted into a churning rhythm and some singeing keyboard vamps that resemble a relaxed take on
Tangerine Dream's suspenseful
soundtrack work for
Thief (minus the crazy guitars). What really makes the whole thing glow is the manner in which the tracks are attached, flowing in and out of one another, rising and cresting and receding, with supreme poise -- even if its title provides no indication, the album is as much a travelogue as
Carl Craig's
Landcruising,
Morgan Geist's
Driving Memoirs, and
Model 500's
Deep Space. These are some of
Burger's most inventive productions, a remarkable feat since he's been doing this so long. Catch yourself in the right frame of mind and you'll wonder if everything he has released has been one extended ramp-up to this. In this age, it is also refreshing to have a purely
ambient techno album with absolutely no connection to
Boards of Canada. In other words, it's a landmark for both its label and its genre. ~ Andy Kellman