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review by Bill Binkelman This must be the year of "feel good" EM, i.e. music designed to feed you lots of tasty ear-candy, making you smile like an idiot because it's, well, fun. Lounge Control comes to you from Peter Mergener, who frequently collaborated with Michael Weisser in the EM duo Software on the old Innovative Communications (IC) label. You'd be correct in expecting to hear a retro sound on the album, and it's certainly there! Fat analog synths galore, '80s synth-pop beats, and a joyful sense of breezily accessible free-flowing melodies that beg to played loud. If you long for the days when FM radio was full of new wave European synth-pop music (but you don't necessarily miss their vapid lyrics), then Lounge Control is custom made for you. Excellent use of high-quality (if occasionally cliché) sound effects (background voices and laughing, clinking glasses, jets taking off) on some tracks only adds to the fun if you're not jaded enough to turn your nose up. Every song title plays on the word "lounge" to some aspect. Opening the album is "Electronic Lounge," resplendent in synth chorales, pumping beats, lots of excellent drum programming, arpeggios, refrains, and those fat analog keyboards. I'd have to say that Lounge Control will probably appeal mostly to fans who miss the past more than they look forward to the next big thing in ambient or EM. Not that this is a less than contemporary "sounding" recording from an engineering standpoint, just that the instrumentation and melodies are decidedly retro, even if the technical aspects are state of the art. The finger-snappin' midtempo title tune, with all manner of laser-zapping retro keyboards, bounces along merrily on top of thick funky bass beats and a lush undercurrent of synth strings. "Electronic Billiard Café" makes use of sound effects of the title game in the background, along with a shuffling programmed drum track, ebbing/flowing synth swirls, panning EM tones, and more laser zaps. The "click, click, click" of billiard balls will either add to your enjoyment (by injecting a fun atmosphere) or will detract from the music. Personally, I like the sounds effects. Other songs include "Sky Lounge" which colors the synth-pop with assorted Berlin school touches and elements (such as a nice midtempo TD-like plucked-string sequence and star-bright twinkling keyboards), the appropriately-titled "Slowmotion Lounge" which introduces delicate romantic melodies on an assortment of Berlin and retro keyboards, alongside tenor synth chorales and spacy sound textures, before evolving into an Enigma-esque modern beat married to '80s synths and lilting flute lines, and "Orient Express Lounge" which uses its drum programming to simulate the sound of rail travel even as shimmering bell arpeggios, pumping bass rhythms and catchy synth melodies get your blood racing at a nice, but not too fast, pace. Closing out the album is "City Lounge" which is arguably the most contemporary track here, although it's still chock full of retro-goodness, however Mergener interjects some newer twists here and there, including some chill-out, electronica and semi-glitchy touches. Don't take it too "seriously," and Lounge Control is sure to please, which is not to say that it's silly or childish music. Far from it, but it is light-hearted and aimed at providing you with a good time, nothing more and nothing less. For all its accessibility, catchiness, and heavy doses of retro, this is still a skillfully performed and recorded, totally professional recording. It just happens to be a cheerful, too. And you can't say that about a lot of EM these days, can you? I don't know about you, but I can use the cheering up, and that's something that Lounge Control manages with ease. Highly recommended. |
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