Interface - CD 2005

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REVIEWS

Gothic Beauty Magazine
East Germany’s Liquid Divine leads out this issue’s sonic assault with an eclectic mix of European thunder-beats. Thrashing about in the syrupy liquid of sub-bass and electro-industrial, this group shows off their skills in a 12-track album heavily reminiscent of Recoil and Front Line Assembly’s 1990s sound. This is a well-produced and immediately appealing release, gently served up for those hungry for a little more EBM in their lives. In the length of this impressive release, the future becomes the present.

Poseidon @ Gothic Beauty Magazine

Neurozine
Germany continues to produce bands in the electro and last year Liquid Divine released their debut album "Interface" through Infacted Recordings. The record contains a total of 12 tracks and with a playtime around 60 minutes.

My first thought i got when i plug the CD into my player and the songs starts running is when the intro will end. Until the end of the song 'Remember Tomorrow', when the beats starts at least. The happiness goes on with 'Kaleidoscope' and 'Something Trivial', which is really great with a high danceable tempo and nice melodies. Even though I like the songs 'Genotype' and 'Lotus' with its really soft and nice blipping sound. 'Kaleidoscope' and 'Something Trivial' [are] the highlights.

Björn Andersson @ Neurozine

Virus Magazine
While the sound of Liquid Divine looks back to the sound of late nineties electronica, they incorporate current electro trends to create a modern ambient debut worthy of it's influences.

On the sleeve notes of "Interface", Liquid Divine site their influences as Massive Attack, Conjure One, FLA, Underworld, Haujobb and Covenat.

These influences show up on their debut but remain influences. Liquid Divine's sound is a slippery majestic rhythmic dance music that is difficult to categorize. It has elements of Electronica genres like groove, chill, drum and bass but it's dark core and emphasis on mood place it outside of all of these. The downtempo mood belies the fact that all the elements of Liquid Divine's music are used as rhythm. Using all instrumentation as rhythm allows elements of Liquid Divine's sound to be interchangeable and transitory.

With few exceptions the vocals and vocal samples are given the same emphasis as the music. An egalitarian approach that gives the whole release a narcoleptic feel.

So what do Liquid Divine sound like?
They sound like animated instructional videos about your synapses, they sound like nature documentaries about the sun, they sound like blissed out addicts about to have a nod, they sound slippery, like the sound is unravelling around you without a core.

But this is deceptive because anything that morphs and changes so effortlessly has to be complex. An understanding of how to replace ambient washes of synths, with dub beats and subbing out monotone dialogues with vocoded choruses takes effort. But you will never hear the effort or see the seams on "Interface". Everything just effuses out of the egalitarian rhythmic base.

If it weren't for a few times when vocals are allowed prominence, one would think "Interface" was one long hour song. Honestly, it would be easier to think of the music on "Interface" as chapters rather than songs. Because the usual song structure does not apply. It's as if someone wanted to create a King Tubby album with the members of Massive Attack.

Then why do I like it? This is the best eggheaded record store clerk dance record, I've heard in a couple of years. I know people think !!!, The Faint and the Scissor Sisters have made great dance records. But they are self concious booty shakers who grew up with ironic movements learned from Beck videos.

Liquid Divine is a bookshelf dance record, the kind of music that could appeal to Aphex Twin fans, Lee Scratch Perry fans, and be played in a mix after the Orb. Now pardon me while I imitate David Bryne in a disco.

Michael Wozny @ Virus Magazine

Sick Among The Pure
I had originally put Liquid Divine’s album Interface on my iPod a month ago, hoping to review it on a recent trip to Los Angeles, but as often happens when I am on the Left Coast, one thing led to another and writing fell by the wayside. However, back in my office in Washington, every other day a Liquid Divine track pops up on my "party shuffle" and I actively stop to check out the song. A lot of albums pass through my desk, but few actually make me sit up and take notice; happily Liquid Divine was one of those rare exceptions. Fans of Haujobb as well as Air will enjoy this Germanic duo’s ethereal sound with minimal lyrics. The simple, stark cover art of Interface is extremely representative of a band that cuts ‘n’ pastes spare electronics with controlled precision. Slow pacing over fast beats reflects Interface’s continual contrasting polarities, which serves as a leitmotiv for the album as a whole. It is hard to single out individual songs as each bleeds into the next, the only thing setting them apart is the occasional punctuated vocals, which, with lyrics like "I'm just a broken color in your kaleidoscope" are probably best left as an afterthought. Liquid Divine are an extremely austere band with an impressive debut, whose only drawback is that at least one of the twelve tracks could benefit from a slight change in pace. Still, this band is creating an interesting genre of minimalist electronica and I eagerly await their next step.

Vivien Weimar @ Sick Among The Pure

Chain DLK
Interface, the debut release from eastern German duo Liquid Divine, is easy to like -- at first. The media kit nails their influences: Haujobb, Front Line Assembly, Recoil, Kraftwerk, and Tear Garden all describe their pedigree very well. The lyrics, all in English, are actually a strong suit for once, coming from the Continent. In fact, the tracks that seem to work best contain odd passages spoken in a low, gutteral drawl, like some post-apocalyptic Romeo whispering to his teenage date. Check out this line describing a sunset: "How fucking wonderful it is to watch that big ball of fire melt into the ocean...!" At last, someone who REALLY knows how to get romantic in a song.

At the middle of the disc, the promising pace ebbs. The trip-hoppy track number 8, "9 to 5", finally rescues my wandering attention from total distraction with more of that cool crypto-poetic speak. After that, however, the rest of the CD becomes filler, losing my attention for good. About four songs pruned from here and there (including that meritless and patronizing 9/11 soundbite at the end of the last track) would do some justice.

Perry Bathous @ Chain DLK

Legends Magazine
Out of Leipzig, Germany, duo Liquid Divine modernize the older classic styles of Kraftwerk, Haujobb and similar artists. Applying more transcendental backgrounds and using these as a backdrop to infuse rhythm and electro beats on top, Christian Ftizsche and Guido Stove fuse elements of rave with those of club. Their debut Interface, out on Ohio favorites Nilaihah Records, offers a lot to the EBM and modern industrial connoisseur.

Smooth and even laced is the norm here as we stroll into Remember Tomorrow following a lucid and quick opening (Prognosis). Kaleidoscope ups the techno just a tad, but not so much that it becomes standard fare - it's much more low key and interesting, underground rather than over the top. Much of the work here on Interface places the trancier, synthesizer elements at the forefront of the arrangements. Something Trivial, as one example of this, will utilize a very swiftly moving beat, but it's tempered and controlled by the background chords giving it a much smoother and floating feel.

Introspective, one of the swiftest of the tracks here on Interlace, is one of the few that doesn't utilize a strong floaty background. Liquid Divine here move straight into bouncy EBM with great samples and slide in the chorales later to add to the already cranking BPMs. Ephemeral is a perfect example of Liquid Divine's earlier discussed chorale-as-forefront format. The strong string-like keyboards open up to the strong-hit rhythm that joins later. Even the spoken word like vocals remain behind the omnipresent chords.

Genotype uses a very well made rhythm/bass movement with a bass slide that really holds the track together and makes it very interesting. Low Life Complex steps away momentarily from the chord-progression musical base, much like Introspective does, becoming a bit more techno with some metallic edged vocal effects. And Your Traces oozes the album to a nice close with a very subtle percussion and ominous chord flows.

What's nice about Interlace is that it can be used on two sides of the spectrum. It would go well to either ramp up a trance/rave night, or you can use it to tone down an industrial/club night. It's an interesting mix, well done and layed out. The problem here is whether or not Liquid Divine will get the recognition their outfit deserves with all the electronic CDs popping out at you whenever you turn a corner.

Marcus Pan @ Legends Magazine

Gothic Paradise
I have to admit that it's taken a while for this album to grow on me. It seems that they combine enough disparate elements together much like Mind.In.A.Box, but it's just not the same. It all sounds much more like Haujobb than much of anything else. But over time several tracks on the album stand out in their unique ambience as captivating and possible electronic classics.

Spoken word is found a lot on the album and so that's much the way it all begins after the introductory track "prognosis", "Remember Tomorrow" kicks it off. The spoken vocals are buoyed up by the slowly building percussion and electronics until the track comes on full-force with a driving dance-friendly beat. For fans of club music, this track may seem to drag before it takes off, but for those that can appreciate the music for what it is, it's actually quite captivating and a highlight of the album. "Kaleidoscope" becomes quite a bit more melodic and picks up the pace a little. But then we're right back to that slightly dragging trancey music and spoken word in "Something Trivial". This goes on through several tracks with the wide mixture of variety coming together into something that ironically doesn't vary much through the rest of the album. "Broadcast" and "Your Traces" are slight exceptions with a heavy ambient influence layered over various samples from the lunar landing to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

As pointed out above, it seems that even though a wide variety of styles are fused together to form the overall musical style of this group, it remains mostly unchanging throughout the album. The use of fast break-beats becomes somewhat annoying, but the various ambient electronic loops or occasional pounding EBM beats bring things back to a more accessible nature.

Overall, the album stands true to the experimental nature of this group. If you can get past all of the fast break-beats, the myriad of styles seem to be something quite accessible and enjoyable to fans.
review @ Gothic Paradise

Wetworks Electrozine
"Interface," the debut album from Liquid Divine is pure synthetic EBM music; from the blissfully cold synthetic melodies and mellow break beats to the heavily vocoded vocals, this band emotes a sort of coldness not found since Haujobb's "Freeze Frame Reality." Just listen to the amazing "Remember Tomorrow" to be convinced. For a debut album, this material is very professional sounding and solid. Some tracks do provide some warmth, like "Something Trivial" and the tranced up "Introspective" which are a bit more upbeat, but for the most part this is pretty subdued material. Recommended to fans that like their EBM less stomp and more atmospheric.

GunHed @ WetWorks Electrozine

Synthpop.net
Interface is the debut album for Liquid Divine, which is made up of Christian Fritzsche and Guido Stoye. Since 2000, this band has been creating music that defies categorization, but defines the members of the band's emotions and influences.

The musical style is very atmospheric, spatial and broad. There's not really much in the way of chorus hooks in these songs, they're more about the mood that each song is intended to evoke. "Something Trivial" was the first track to stand out to me, but again, it's very difficult to pick out particular tracks on a album of this nature. This album is one to sit and listen to late at night, in darkness with minimal light, and just allow the music to wash over you.

Jason Baker @ Synthpop.net

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