Life Without Fear

This is Frankfurt-based Ekkehard Ehlers' (Autopoieses, Marz) seventh release for the Staubgold label. A frontrunner in electronic experimentation and electroacoustic composition, Ehlers has reinterpreted Schoenberg, produced an album of folktronica, and paid aural indietronic tributes to Albert Ayler and Cornelius Cardew on his acclaimed Plays series of EPs. Anomalous in the best sense of the word, a Life Without Fear is as unexpected as Jim O'Rourke's embrace of John Fahey's music a decade ago. Ekkehard Ehlers once again harnesses the genius natural resource that is Joseph Suchy's go-for-broke attitude towards the guitar, and the "electric blues" are given yet another definition. A Life Without Fear occasionally strays into Maher Shalal or 21st century Red Krayola Blues, Hollers and Hellos turf, but wait - Franz Hautzinger's at the door. Droning, guitar-picked porch blues blend with whiskey-soaked vocals, voodoo jazz, and throbbing electronics while low hums rub up against scraped strings and a buzzed-out harmonica heard through a tin-can. This is rough-hewn experimental bluestronica mixed with graveyard dirt.