ZHARK

"Frühwerke 1983 - 1988"

SkullLine - 2008

CDr - 100 copies

A past that won't pass. For the die-hard fans of 1980s' electronic music, this "Frühwerke 1983 - 1988" compilation by Teutonic one-man band Zhark, released by small but armed to the teeth label SkullLine, possesses an absolute, inestimable value. With this useful retrospective service, we bring to the audience's attention a non very well known, but still extremely valid minimal-electro band. With its mystical inspiration towards a world yet to come, Zhark gets hold of the analogue treasure left behind by deities Kraftwerk and D.A.F., mixing it with the sulfurous world of 80s' videogames. The result can be felt from the very first beats: not a stop, no thoughtfulness, no uncertainty, but a continuous shifting in rhythm, endless electronic quivers holding us suspended on the edge of sounds erupting with outbursting life. We are in front of electronics in pure and excellent 80s' style. Danceable and, at the same time, strict. Caged but free to fly among the electromagnetic waves that dwells the ether.

A bed of roses for nostalgics of the last century's 80s', and not just them. After the opening danceable and refined track "Atomium" (1984), were it not for the CD cover, with Hitler's UFOs darting above silent woods, while going back up a valley caressed by the sun and split in two by a mysterious river, we would think about a joke of time. For those who, like me, lived those years, listening to Zhark's sounds means diving into an everlasting and topical time warp. Nearly all the songs in the compilation are a concentrate of unique feelings and emotions hard to describe, from the massively enjoyable synth pop rhythms (that fed so much the dancefloors of that era), with some slight purely electronic venations, of "Stealth" (1985), "Destiny" (1984), "Wird" (1985) and "Helmholtz Equation" (1985), reaching then the more rigid, segmented and Kraftwerkian futurisms of "Melodia Mekanika Part I and II" (1983), "Hannebu III" (1983) and "Thule Tachyonator" (1983). Closing with the Wagnerian "Opus Magnum" (1986). Zhark, beyond any contingency, beyond time, musically ahead.

- Marco S.

Website: http://www.zhark-musik.de

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/zharkdeutschland