Snow Glow

The German electronica band, Alphawezen has earned a large cult following on the Internet, as of late. "En Passant" (2004) which is Alphawezen's finest musical statement was largely ignored by American audiences. It's too bad because "En Passant" is in the top tier of notable trip-hop/electronica albums along with classics like Portishead's debut album, Massive Attack's "Blue Lines", Goldfrapp's "Felt Mountain", The K&D Sessions, the Orb's "UFOrb" and Thievery Corporation's "Mirror Conspiracy." Those trip hop artists have a slightly profile than Alphawezen but none of these bands have a high recognition factor outside of the electronica music fan base.

Here the basic Alphawezen bio and profile info: Alphawezen is a German duo that consists of Asu Yalcindag (vocals, lyrics) and Ernst Wawra (music). Alphawezen has 3 albums and several vinyl 12" singles in international release, and their music has been collected on a few electronica anthologies. Alphawezen's most recent album is 2007's "Comme Vous Voulez".

This November 2009 album titled "Snow Glow" is technically an anthology because it contains mostly remixes of previous material. But all of the tracks will be new to those who've never heard Alphawezen. There are original edits of seven Alphawezen classics Freeze, Permutation3, Frost, Sommerzeit, Headlights and Wald2. The remaining 19 tracks are remixes earlier singles and old album tracks by the band.

Three instrumentals "Welcome To Machinarchy", Wald2" and their earliest underground dance club hit "Frost" (2201) are trippy riddim driven dance cuts that draw on the foundation laid by 70s electronica groups like Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire. On the tracks where chanteuse Aau Yalcindag sings, Alphawezen has a sound that is reminiscent of first generation trip hop groups that featured a sultry female vocalist like Portishead, Moorcheeba, and Lamb.

The good news is that this "Snow Glow" collection has two albums worth of music (26 songs) and retails for $7.99 as an MP3 download at Amazon. Some of the remixes don't top the Alphawezen original production mixes of the songs, but every remix adds a musical fresh perspective to the song. It's hard to top the original mix and arrangement of Alphawezen's trademark song "Speed of Light" and you'll have pay 99 cents to download the radio edit. Just make sure it's the radio edit of "Speed of Light" which is the first cut on Alphawezen's 2008 EP titled "The Speed of Light EP." I point that out because the song was and still is a popular remix item for deejays and dozens of less than spectacular remixes of "The Speed of Light" are part of Alphawezen's back catalog.

From my perspective, the first generation of trip-hop & pop electronica never really got a full hearing by American listeners and early 90s and groups like Massive Attack, Portishead, Everything But the Girl and Saint Etienne are just beginning to gain a larger mainstream following in the United States, even as the founding members of those groups enter middle age.

The influence of early trip-hop upon the current generation of pop music artists is pervasive. The success of pop artists like Imogen Heap, LaRoux, XX, Santogold or M.I.A is hard to imagine without the foundation of the first generation trip-hop. Depending on your own unique musical perspective, Alphawezen one of the last bands from the 1st generation trip-hop or one the earliest bands from the second generation of musicians who brought trip into the mainstream in the form of pop electronica. Those of us who discovered electronic music in the 60s with the Silver Apples or suffered verbal abuse in the 70s for our love of Kraftwerk never dreamed of a future world with a musical genre called "pop electronica." Strange times indeed!

NOTEABLE SONGS: track 2: Gun Song (Nightmares on Wax remix), track 3: Rain (Norbert Weedloaf remix), track 6: Frost (1997 version), track 9: Gai Soleil (original radio edit), track 10: Headlights, track 12: Freeze (2007 version), track 19: Sommerzeit, track 23: Wald2 (edit), track 24: Gun Song (Dadamnphreaknoizphunk remix), & track 25: Into the Stars (Dio remix). (taken from amazon.com)