Altered Zones

Datashock's immense double LP, Pyramiden Von Gießen, has been floating around since mid-April, but for an album this sonically sophisticated, this stylistically diverse and experimental-- and captivating to the very core-- it can take a full two months to mine its riches. Datashock is a fluid collective of at least ten German musicians, and in the most sublime, exultant passages on Pyramiden, it feels they have all synched into a secret rhythm and language-- like a musical flow that undulates only within them. The nine-minute "Lasagne Phalanx," one of the shorter cuts on the hour-plus record, is preluded by a four-minute intro of siren-like synths that fry into your brain. The rhythmic interplay of guitars rises over a foundation of soft, delicate drones, with distant chants floating even higher still. The track's perfect blend of electronics and acoustic instruments echoes the psychedelic and Kraut stylings of A.R. & Machines, and allows slowly enveloping layers of sound and swift build-ups of pace to lure the listener to that transcendental space.

Indeed, under the description of Datashock on the Dekoder website, Jürgen Ploog writes that in the terrains of music, "the traveler rides on waves of sound, while losing his last pieces of baggage, experience and the identity familiar to him." Listening to "Lasagne Phalanx," and to Pyramiden as a whole, evokes this feeling in the grandest of ways. Through the miasmic incantations, the chilling gusts of synths and the beating of the drums, it's as if Datashock are playing back to a place well beyond baggage, before (or after) personal identity, with only vast musical panoramas and vistas to behold for the inquisitive wanderer. --Daniel Gottlieb, Altered Zones

Datashock: "Lasagne Phalanx"

Pyramiden Von Gießen is out via Dekoder now