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Beat Bizarre Maunder Minimum Iboga Records Tracklist: 1. Abrikosmos 2. Alternative Realitys 3. Aphrodite's Drop 4. Connect The Dots 5. Cultural Dumping 6. Headroom 7. Infobesity 8. Kalopsia 9. Midas Touch 10. Myokymia 11. Ouroboros 12. Pinnacle Island 13. Pure 14. Sjykadelikum 15. Terra Incognita 16. Tomgods 17. Undrumm 18. Unknown Unknowns 19. VeloCity 20. Wharf "I have made this album during winter time in Denmark and everyone that knows the danish winters knows that it can feel like a little ice age, which is exactly what Maunder Minimum was." - Martin Spanner Zimmerman, Beat Bizarre Martin's own question at the end of that quote was, "Maybe you can even feel some of the cold in the music?!" Maybe, but not too likely. Maunder Minimum is some pretty warm and optimistic music. Beat Bizarre has always been a very fine purveyor of techno, making his take on the genre a bit more creative than most others, with results that come across as much smoother and classier than his peers. Maunder Minimum, however, takes the Beat Bizarre classiness, the Beat Bizarre smoothness, and raises his art to a whole new level of elegance. By combining relaxed and grooving techno with relaxed and grooving afternoon progressive psy the results are lovely and very much on the order of Minilogue and Son Kite. As with those techno and progressive psy legends, Beat Bizarre melts the borders of genre classification and comes up with a monstrous twenty tracks worth of material, with results that are sometimes techno, sometimes progressive, sometimes not so easily defined, but definitely of the utmost quality. When asked, Martin says, "I really don´t want to put myself in a genre box. I make the type of music that I feel like and that can change from day to day. Even if I had to choose a genre, I wouldn´t know which one that´ll suit me best. I mean, this new album streches over at least four different genres and even then I find a similarity in the tracks. For me it´s about making the music you love and not so much about following today's trends." The beginning of this lengthy trip contains some fine gems, such as "Alternative Realitys," the techno-heavy "Connect The Dots," the sunny bounce of "Cultural Dumping" and the uber-groovy trippiness of "Infobesity." Late in the album, quite pleasingly, not a single filler track is to be found as more smooth and classy productions, such as, "Terra Incognita," "VeloCity" and the excellent "Wharf," await. The strengths of Maunder Minimum are very dependent on the time of day when they are heard. The earlier, the better, when one's personal hustle-and-bustle cannot interfere with the intricacies of the music, where the subtle energetic sounds of this Beat Bizarre master work are not forced to compete with any stressful outside influences. There is magic aplenty in this collection but not allowing the tracks their own time and place only serves an injustice to them. When asked if twenty tracks, easily two albums worth of material, was too much and if he was concerned with running out of ideas, Martin said, "It could have been longer, but I saved some tracks for another time. I´m more concerned that I will miss some of my ideas in the making. The inspiration can come to me from almost anything and anywhere. Even when you least think it, an idea just pops up in your head and you need to capture it somehow. That can be quite a challenge. But mostly the ideas come when I sit in the studio and just have fun playing around with all types of sounds and music genres. I don´t think that twenty tracks is too much for one album, if the twenty tracks don´t all sound the same. "I really very seldom listen to the type of music I make myself but I have to mention a few electronic names that have inspired me for this album. They would be Son Kite/Minilogue, James Monro, Extrawelt, Pan-Pot, Atmos." Credit him then for accomplishing a very lengthy piece of magic, at twenty tracks long, that never feels like it is sticking around much longer than it should be. Also, with that impressive list of influences, not a single track in this album sounds like a copy-cat but instead stand as very much equals to much of the sounds, moods and creativity within the canon of any of those artists. As with many of those mentioned artists, Beat Bizarre and, especially, Maunder Minimum is something quite special. Beatport Beat Bizarre @ Facebook