Peter Frohmader/Nekropolis ‎– Musik Aus Dem Schattenreich (1981, LP, Germany)

This is Peter Frohmader's first LP and is a self produced and released record, and as such bears some of the qualities of immediacy and rawness you would expect from a German experimentalist's debut.All the tracks have a ghostly synthesizer droning of various intensity to provide a heavily atmospheric backdrop, sometimes hostile, stormy howlings of alien and drifting and even cosmic, paint your own visuals. Having said this, the LP is not at all unvaried, the first three tracks are swamped by powerful bass, guitar and drums to give a demonic early Can feel. The last track on this side (the hell side) is a synthesizer piece, which leaves behind the rock 'n' roll and begins the tendency for the whole LP to quieten down and demand more attention and volume. This track is the longest at 8:54 and reminds you of the benefits to be had from draught exclusion.Side two (the night cycle) opens similarly, then the Frohmader trademark, intense bass bashing creeps in and takes over the synthesizer swirl, the restrained electric percussion and what sounds like the crows cawing with lots of echo. The next track is a build up of synthesizer twitters, drones, and notes plus the unobtrusive electric percussion giving an overall Schnitzler sound. After this the LP quietens right down with deep slow echoed layers of what sounds like electric cello and synthesizer. In the final track the synthesizer drones make little more noise than the average fridge, or maybe that is the fridge, whilst all manners of gong and tam tam are mallet struck and left to reverberate and finish of the side. by Alan & Steve Freeman, first published in Audion 1 (1986)