Asmus Tietchens - Parergon FLAC download

I have to admit I sort of regret the increased maturity (?) of the work Tietchens has been putting out over the past years, and this disc is no exception. There may be some large conceptual statements being made, and I do sometimes enjoy sound for sound's sake. But since he finished recording his wild, but extremely musical work on Sky (comparable to Conrad Schnitzler but with his own personality filling the grooves) a lot of the stuff seems to be very dry, academic, and just not much fun to listen to. The vaguely sci-fi motif of this album cover made me hope he was returning with his own unique assault on the conventions of pop music. No such luck. If there was any actual music on this, it escaped my attention. The sound constructions just didn't strike me as especially engaging. I really wish Tietchens would have a go at real music again instead of these neverending experiments, because his 'pop' is fascinating. His career has not been a total wash for me since the Sky albums ended. I thought The Shifts Recyclings, made in collaboration with Vidna Obmana were a fascinating listen. Not especially music, as many understand it, but what they did with their sound experiments were engaging and hypnotic, as opposed to forbidding and incomprehensible which I have found his recent work to be. I will give it another play because I appreciate his brilliance and may have overlooked some sonic joys herein. Otherwise I found Paregon to be yet another obscurely motivated excursion into dull sound which has been the Tietchens trajectory ever since he made the regrettable decision to abandon any semblance of music. If you have not heard the music he recorded on the Sky label, you're missing some of the most original and entertaining Krautrock there is.