Blue-in-Green:RADIO

Wednesday 23 November 2022

'Music For Fantasy, Road Tripping and Day Dreaming' by Lambda 77



'Music For Fantasy, Road Tripping and Day Dreaming' is the brand new release from Lambda 77 via France's Q-Sounds Recordings.


Delivering the second helping in what now appears to be an ongoing 'Music For...' series, the union of Hamburg musicians Sebastian Nagel and Albrecht Schrader, under the collective banner of Lambda 77, present a scintillating introduction to the Q-Sounds label and a worthy successor to the efforts of Rob D. Vulosic.


Released earlier this year, the series was kick-started with 'Music For Riots Revolutions & Showdowns' by Vulosic (with more than a little help from musician, producer and Q-Sounds' very own Norman Smuggler) which presented a fantastic twelve-track musical exploration into the gritty, abrasive and visceral notion of revolution.  A theme which generated some brilliant pieces while holding a mirror up to countless sinister and somewhat bleak global events from government corruption to worldwide pandemics to police brutality.


Lambda 77 however seek to pull us all from the harsh realities of our everyday lives and elevate us to higher states of bliss, of fantasy, reverie and imagination.  


In many ways, Nagel and Schrader have been abiding by these rules when it comes to music for years... For guitarist Sebastian Nagel, those traits were absolutely achieved via his time as part of The Mighty Mocambos - one of the leading worldwide names for funk & soul, The Mighty Mocambos' presentation of blazing horns, propulsive drums and fervent guitars mixed within an ode-to-hip-hop breakbeat platform have long served as the Mocambo staple across the multitude of their releases as a unit and collaborations with Caroline Lacaze, Gizelle Smith and their side project, the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band.


Albrecht Schrader provides a distinctly alternate take to Nagel's history of dancefloor-based grooves with more lush recordings showcasing his innumerable talents as a singer, songwriter and pianist.  With several releases to his name, along with contributions to others' projects, Schrader's masterful talents provide a sublime accompaniment to Nagel's with Lambda 77 able to offer a wonderful culmination of both artists' abilities.


The project's eight tracks are gloriously indicative of the "fantasy, road tripping and day dreaming" aesthetic with tracks capturing these phantasmical elements perfectly.  'Wrong-Way Drive', 'Don't Connect the Dot$' and 'False Memory' are sensational album highlights - their use of lush synths and psychedelic guitars paired with an expansive cinematic scope places you physically in the car along with our two musical navigators - where you're going is irrelevant, time isn't a consideration, all there is the final moments of the day before the orange-tinged sky fully disappears and makes way for the solace of darkness.  Bliss.


Eagerly looking forward to the next instalment of Q-Sounds' 'Music For...' series and what deep-seated and inherent experience will be bestowed upon us next.


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