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Vrije: Blitzkrieg

by Alto Stratus

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1.
Cosmotron 16:48
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2.
Heavy Metal Part 1: Dawning 22:24
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3.
Heavy Metal Part 2: Blitzkrieg 26:55
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4.
Coda 01:12

about

One of the darkest, most intense and disturbing of the Vrije era. The huge concept opus "Heavy Metal" that was split across two sides was nothing to do with the music genre, but more to do with scientific discovery and the destructive power of some metal elements and was also something to do with a sub-plot in a Michael Moorcock book, although as to exactly what that info has been lost in time!

This album was created at a time when we were at a creative turning point. On the one hand, we wanted to do an album of heavy power electronics that would fit into the industrial scene, and on the other hand we were trying to be contemporary avant-garde, all this whilst also developing as musicians and trying to fit in melodic elements. The tools we had were starting to limit us however, as we'd explored a lot of what we could do with the Yamaha CS-5, were coming up with way too many cheesy pieces with the Casio keyboards, and such-like. On large though, this was quite a successful album, albeit one we revised over and over and were never completely satisfied with at the time. When digitising the album recently, I discovered that the only duff moments were a section near the beginning of "Heavy Metal, Part 2: Blitzkrieg" and the really dreadful joke track "Dance of the Eloy". I used the original first draft master here, which also had an extra uncredited short "Coda" at the end and added that as a gentle ending. We thus here have an excellent 67 minute excursion of dark brooding electronics. Enjoy!

credits

released August 17, 2020

Produced & recorded by S+A Freeman (June-July 1983).
synth, keys, sounds, tapes
© Dark Star.

Original cassette (Syzygy ZC 90.015) © 1983
This download (Syzygy ZC 70.015 DL) © 2020

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Alto Stratus Leicester, UK

The duo of Alan and Steve Freeman (Ultima Thule), we spent much of our spare time during the 1980's experimenting with electronics, sound collage, etc., recording some 30 odd cassettes as Alto Stratus (and other guises: Vrije, Q.S.O., Electric Junk, etc.), also as soloists, and the trio ZBB. For 30 years we've continued with a 10 further releases since, bands: Endgame, The Newt Hounds, Triax, etc. ... more

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