Modelbau - The End of the Continuum Modelbau

Anybody paying attention to what’s been happening at Lumberton Trading Company during recent months should have noticed that Modelbau had a collaborative CD with Bass Communion released in late March. Meshing abstract electronics with ambient textures, field recordings and a more electroacoustic setting, Analysis Reveals Nothing of Substance brought together the minds of Frans de Waard and Steven Wilson into a space that proved their own slightly different takes on such music exemplified a unique synergy rich in scope.

On The End of the Continuum, however, Frans gathers nine solo compositions effortlessly proving his skills as an artist capable of moulding wonderful shapes from sinewy electronic tones, spacey bleeps and bloops, iridescent babbling, penumbral shifts and, ultimately, a minimalist soundbed that perhaps draws from yet sits outside the work of Eliane Radigue, Asmus Tietchens, Brian Eno, Roland Kayn and others. As with other recent Modelbau albums, there’s as much emphasis on space, and allowing the sounds to move and assume forms at their own pace, as there is on sonics which might sit comfortably at the edge of the known universe. Everything sits well together and is the result of somebody who, after having spent decades listening to and championing all kinds of weird and wonderful music from the deepest underground crannies and crevices, has a clear idea about what to avoid when realising his own vision. Each piece is shorter than what’s expected of the content on the average album now as well. We are left gasping for more.Somewhat more penetrable than so much similarly-inclined music, this is deep listening given a lift to the point one could drift away for endless days to it. This might even be Modelbau’s best album yet.Besides the nine cuts there’s an additional exclusive remix by Bass Communion that catches Steven Wilson not only failing to resist his own adding of sounds but catches him once again providing the lengthiest piece on the album. The perfect finale to an album once more compounding the fact there are still places to explore in the world of experimental ambient music.