- Petar Dundov's little-heard Escapements is a masterpiece of electronic home-listening. Like Jean-Michel Jarre, Dundov unwittingly cracked some sort of secret code. For one album Jarre made New Age cheese palatable and Dundov made Manuel Göttsching dance. It's a unique trick, and one that—heard in isolation—doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
That's why hearing "Sparkling Stars" on one side of vinyl may be great, but doesn’t quite equal the enormity of being surrounded by the seven other tracks on Escapements that relentlessly mine the same vibe. Even so, "Sparkling Stars" is the ferocious-little-tune-that-could here, marrying a pounding kick drum to its modulating synth lines. The focus is clearly on the power of repetition, but Dundov never skimps on the melody either, giving listeners something to follow for its nearly ten-minute length.
If you find Dundov's brand of repetition to be a bore, don't bother flipping this slab over. Gavin Russom's remix of "Oasis" turns the tempo down and stretches the thing out to nearly 16 divinely inspired—or painful, depending on your taste—minutes of patient funk. I could listen to Terry Riley's "In C" for days on end personally, so I tend to veer towards the divinely inspired end of things, as Russom's guitar work seems to take a few cues from Michael Karoli, Can's hypnotic krautaxeman, as a drum machine plinks away in the background patiently waiting for the moment to drop a fill. Don't hold your breath.
Tracklist A Sparkling Stars
B Oasis (Gavin Russom Remix)