Mathias Grassow : second gift of life

Mathias has been the ultimate drone master for years and he continues to perfect his craft with his first solo release on our main label. "Second Gift Of Life" offers 5 magical droning pieces with typical Grassow overtones, flavoured with subtle pitch changes. A gift of hypnotic tranquility and minimalist bliss.

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REVIEW

After more than 20 solo and collaboration albums released on Databloem's sublabel Practising Nature, here comes the premiere solo CD on the main Databloem label, released at December 1st, 2012. As obvious for this German drone virtuoso, his release pipeline is always completely filled, if I am counting correctly, "Second Gift Of Life" might be Mathias' 8th album (including two collaborations with John Haughm and Carsten Agthe) plus one remastered edition ("Himalaya") during the last 12 months. A truly productive year!!! The journey launches with "Primordial", a quite typical drone piece, monotonously ebbing and drifting, wrapped by hissy clouds throughout and flavored by processed flute sounds and mechanized outbursts and breaths. Full immersion guaranteed!!! As mentioned by the artist, this track is based on "Ambience" sessions (the famous "Ambience" album was originally released in 1995). "A Second Of Stillness" is of a heavier and deeper calibre and drifts into gloomier terrains. Endlessly spiraling mysterious dronescape with sacred choir-like obscured mood is precisely bridged with distant subtle tinkles. After about 10 minutes tranquilizing watery sounds join the texture. "Nada Brahma" clocks to nearly 23 minutes and hovers on long static drones, which create deeply hypnotizing feel thanks to its occurring ethereal voice-like character, here and there fragranced with distant factory-like infusions and hisses adding again some haziness to the overall atmosphere of this composition. Quiet and delicate soundscaping with the signature of Mathias Grassow!!! "70's Language Of Time" dives into adventurous terrains with freshly sequenced parts coupled with spooky heavy sacral percussions and assorted expressive female chants, voice samples and rainy sounds. Stunningly colorful, distinctive and evocative sonic escapade presenting The Drone King at his most extraordinary!!! Could be easily compared to some of the secret projects of El Culto clan... And one of the highlights too!!! Immense icy dronescapes invade the closing composition, "Egawen - The End Of The Beginning", tediously flowing and waning, safely guarded by angelic choirs and occasionally enhanced by hauntingly tricky fragments. Masterfully reflective and profoundly mesmerizing journey!!! Databloem's distinctive cover imaging path created by their persistent visual guru Theo Rabou provides another bonus points to this album, a sublimely fitting accompaniment to the music. Once again, Mathias Grassow keeps on exhibiting his infinite drone visionary!!! "Second Gift Of Life" is definitely a vital addition to your massive discography by this enigmatic sound shaman. Superb album!!!
(Richard Gürtler)