Foreigner (Aniv)

Von Spar celebrates the 10th anniversary of their groundbreaking 2009 album, Foreigner, with a reissue edition of the long-time out-of-print LP. Von Spar consist of Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Philip Tielsch, and Christopher Marquez. On Foreigner, Von Spar has once again put themselves to the task of juxtaposing seemingly disparate musical spheres. The spectrum ranges from electrified pop and krautrock elements to fusion experiments to clubby electro tracks. Based in Cologne and Berlin, the four musicians celebrate an elaborately constructed disorder. Like their previous releases, it defies categorization. The quartet left the planet entirely for the duration of the album production in Cologne in late 2009, smoldering with a psychedelic heat before combusting into light-flooded cosmic haze - full of warm bass and rolling rhythms. All around, cosmic melodies shimmer clearly, aimed straight into the future. And even when the percussive patterns spread earthy rhythms, there is still a synthetic sound buzzing around somewhere, telling of the vastness of the universe. The multi-layered vocal-parts which appear in well-dosed intervals work as anchors on this colored trip: The single "trOOps" combines almost R&B-ish vocals with a kraut-y disco groove. This contrasts with the calmness of the nautically inspired album opener "Scotch & Chablis" or cosmic space-mantra odes like "Lambda". Foreigner is a science-fiction album chock full of trippy pop, which tumbles through unexplored terrain without forgetting to look in the rearview mirror and allowing the listeners enough room to use their own imagination.