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Lunz 3 (69'23") makes our collection of contemporary music one masterpiece richer. Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Tim Story do sound great on their own, but transcendent together. Through a unique intuition their collaboration leaves enough room not only for one another, but also for moments of tenderness and light. It is a dream team-up that is by turns searching enough to elicit some head-scratching, yet gutting enough to bring a listener to tears - sometimes in the span of a single composition. In the yawn of years since the issue of the original Lunz (2002) this duo has strived to become more worthy of their craft. Lunz 3, bathed in the autumnal light of time remembered, is partly a studio re-imagining of the earlier tracks, but to some extent a fresh new endeavor. Building on ideas and themes from the prior release, Roedelius and Story easily re-inhabit the gentle gravity of their Ambient Chamber Music. The musical gestures encountered here again feel straightforward and uncomplicated. By combining vague classical influences with weightless spacemusic, they conjure up a safe zone - an odd area where the notes may stay the same but their meaning is ever changing. With the pianos, cellos and violins engaging in lovely melodic substance, an ethereal sonic invention adds instruction-less puzzles. Bringing fragrance into the listener's solitude an imaginative assortment of samples, gentle distortion and other detailed effects move these 18 key-centered pieces, by root progressions, each to their own perfect resolution. With wit and wisdom in every tone Roedelius and Story realize their quiet, hand-played works. Fundamental is the thought that people may be reached, that beauty can make a difference. Due to its expansive promise their music seems inexhaustible - as the musicians and their listeners are constantly seeking more from it. Lunz 3 opens a rare space for peace, thought and warmth. It is as powerfully effective as instrumental storytelling gets - flowing with the solemn, blissful insistence of life itself. From a slow chill and friendly sweetness, to the feeling of leaving Earth, or even the sense of coming home, for the duration of this album we get to live in a realm that we can make sense of.
Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 18 September 2019
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