GÜNTER SCHICKERT

What goes round comes around for German looping pioneer.

While guitarist Günter Schickert lacks the same profile as Manuel Göttsching and other stars of the krautrock and kosmische firmament, his 1974 debut album Samtvogel vibrates with a darkly obsessive quality that remains truly striking. Although the technology has become more refined and streamlined since he began his experiments with time, timbre and metre, the musical instincts animating that debut and its 1979 Sky label follow-up, Überfällig, are clearly present here. Recorded in the summer of 2018, there’s a sweltering oppressiveness in Nocturnus, Ceiling, and Wohin. They glower and ring with heavy jarring harmonies, evoking claustrophobic, pulsating cityscapes honeycombed with a suffocating neonsaturated ambience. The paradox which artists using any loop-based system have to grapple with is how to utilise the freedom such equipment affords them while being locked inside a cyclical format. Schickert’s route is to prodigiously solo over the contrapuntal grooves and beats assembled by producer Andreas Spechtl. It’s a dependable approach that has crafted a record of brooding character and hallucinogenic atmosphere that bears repeated listens.