- Burnt Friedman is not an artist who looks backwards. Like many German producers of his generation—Uwe Schmidt and Thomas Franzmann, for example—he quickly passed through his early forays into new beat and EBM to explore the rich possibilities electronic music presented in the '90s. He did so through, among other projects, the abstract dub of Nonplace Urban Field and the deconstructed jazz of Flanger. Over the course of the decade, many of his peers swerved between closely related scenes—techno to ambient, jungle to downtempo—but Friedman carved his own path from the start, rarely affiliating himself with a label and seldom sounding like anyone else.
While his career has been relatively autonomous—much of his output has been self-released on Nonplace—Friedman's music has lately been championed by dance music's leftfield, as evidenced by appearances at Club Der Visionaere, Freerotation and Labyrinth. There's a healthy appetite for the alchemy provided by Friedman's unique style, where nonconformist rhythms meet organic and electronic instrumentation. The various parts of his music surge forth with purpose yet play out with a delicate touch.
Anthology 1980-2017 shows that this approach has been his calling card for a long time. Take the spellbinding run of "Sorcier," "Nerfs D'Acier" and "Intrication," recorded in 1994, 1999 and 1996, respectively. Though less refined than recent material, these tracks are astounding in their fragile beauty. If the complexity of Friedman's music has increased with time, the music has always had a sensitive side. "En Bu 2," first released in 2012, has an unsettling sense of urgency, but the nagging string plucks and stabs are offset by subtly beautiful tones caught up in the whirling percussion. "Monkhide" shows it's not always the drums that dictate things. Here, sweeping drones and pads, embellished with grainy overtones, guide the music's course.
Listening to the three previously unreleased tracks from the '80s, it's remarkable how much of Friedman's sonic identity was there from the start. "Ochlott," from 1988, may have strains of post-punk unease in its bass and discordant keys, but it's still limber, funky and otherworldly in the same way as, say, "Acroagnosis," from 2016. The melodic progression, hypnotic pulse and repeated phrases of 1985's "Sayonara" are a clear forerunner to what would come afterwards. These tracks offer the most fascinating insight into the progression Friedman has undergone in his time, and how clear his mission has been from the outset.
Tracklist01. En Bu 2
02. Monkhide
03. The Pestle
04. Sorcier
05. Nerfs D'Acier
06. Intrication
07. Secret Route
08. Near Life
09. Acroagnosis
10. Languish
11. Grace
12. Wentletrap
13. Knick
14. Monsun
15. Ochlott
16. Day In Rho
17. Sayonara