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CD
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MORR 139CD
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Fenster's Emocean is the soundtrack to a sci-fi adventure film created by and starring the band. The music is a swirling cosmos of richly varied post-psychedelia, transcending the boundaries of reality and traditional pop records to join the ranks of other genre-bending music films like Daft Punk's Interstella 5555 (2003) or Prince Rama's Never Forever (2013). With Emocean, the band utilizes its classic approach to non-traditional percussion and instrumentation, but this time ventures deeper into new territory with funky basslines ("Off the Cahin") complemented by additional instruments like bass clarinet ("Memories"), flute ("Phantasia"), and modular synthesizers ("Samson's Theme"). Emocean is a nuanced and surprising departure from the band's first two albums, Bones (MORR 112CD/LP, 2011) and The Pink Caves (MORR 127CD/LP, 2013). The approach to this record was a more holistic exercise in collective songwriting resulting from a series of feverish jam sessions. The sounds evoke a broad spectrum of parallel universes, from soothing surfy tidal cliffs to analog synth dungeons; from interstellar purple-funk disco-techs and wobbly organs in houses of worship to acid blues parades and delicate maidens picking daisies on the moon ("Les Fleurs"). The most danceable track is definitely "Off the Cahin," and "Memories" is a sun-soaked summer jam. Emocean was conceived as a conceptual soundtrack before the film's actual production and evolved into the most ambitious project the band has ever done. With a year of planning, over a month of shooting on HD and mostly VHS, a cast of over 100 actors and extras, numerous outdoor and indoor locations, the rental of an entire island for a day, drone cameras, and a self-built green-screen studio, the project is unlike anything else. It brought the band to the edge of madness. Based in Berlin and hailing from four different countries, Fenster began as a 2010 collaboration between Jonathan Jarzyna (Germany/Poland) and JJ Weihl (US), who were later joined by Lucas UFO (France) and Will Samson (UK). Fenster's first two albums garnered critical acclaim, and the band has toured extensively in the USA, UK, and 15 other countries in Europe. This release comes in advance of a planned tour featuring the band playing the soundtrack live along with screenings of the film, transforming the experience of classic silent cinema into a fantastical journey headed for the unknown.
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