ドイツ・ニュルンベルクの音楽シーンで活動するドラマー出身のプロデューサー、Michael Kargel。インディー・ポップやロカビリーといった多様なバンドでキャリアを積んできた彼が始動させたプロジェクト、Neumayer Stationによる没入感溢れるアルバムが登場した。

共同プロデューサーには、Claremont 56レーベルではお馴染みのFrank Mollenaを迎え、ニュルンベルクのアンダーグラウンドで活躍する多彩なゲスト・ミュージシャンたちが参加。3年の歳月をかけて録音された本作は、クラシックなドイツの「コスミッシェ・ムジーク」が持つ催眠的な響きと、伝説的バンドCANのような自由で陶酔感のあるエネルギー、そして陽光を浴びたバレアリックの美しさが完璧な調和を見せている。

アルバムを象徴する「Unterführung」では、浮遊感のあるヴォーカルがスペーシーなギターやアナログシンセ、ゆったりとしたドラムブレイクの上を漂い、聴き手をサイケデリックな世界へと引き込む。また、「Nalut」ではトロピカルなギターとディレイを多用したサックスがダブの効いた低重心のグルーヴと交差し、続く「A Gentle Flow」では情緒的なピアノとジャズギターが朝の光のような清々しさを運び出す。

アメリカーナの影響を感じさせるギターとメトロノームのように正確なダブ・ベースが絡み合う「Bassrutscher」から、躍動感のあるシャッフル・ビートが心地よい「Zielgerade」へと続く流れは圧巻だ。溝に刻まれた音の粒子がスピーカーから解き放たれるたび、幾重にも重なる音響の層が部屋の空気を塗り替えていく。クラウトロックの伝統を継承しつつ、現代的なバレアリック・サウンドへと昇華させた、深夜から夜明けまでに寄り添う至高の音響体験がここにある。

A1. Unterfuhrung
A2. Nalut
B1. A Gentle Flow
B2. Bassrutscher
C1. Zielgerade
C2. Von Der Morgenrote
D1. Feeling Forst
D2. Crossings

Two years after making their bow via a fine contribution to the Claremont Editions 3 compilation, Nuremberg’s Neumayer Station are ready to drop their debut full-length excursion, the mesmerising and immersive Crossings.

The brainchild of drummer-turned-producer Michael Kargel, a musician with a bulging CV that includes stints in various German indie-pop and rockabilly bands, Crossings was co-produced and mixed by Frank Mollena (best known to Claremont 56 fans as the man behind the Fürsattl and Bambi Davidson projects), with additional contributions by Alexander Sticht and an impressive roll call of guest musicians plucked from Nuremberg’s vibrant musical underground.

Recorded at different points over the last three years, the eight tracks showcased on Neumayer Station’s inspired debut album draw influence from the hypnotism of classic German ‘kosmische’ recordings, the freewheeling and stoned headiness of CAN, and the gently unfurling beauty of sun soaked Balearica. Kargel, Mollena and their collaborators set the tone with opener ‘Unterführung’, where Sticht’s layered and sonically hazy vocalisations rise above space-rock guitar motifs, droning analogue synth sounds, languid bass and slow-motion drum breaks. With effects aplenty and all manner of melodic electronic flourishes, it’s a deeply psychedelic and mind-expanding affair.

‘Nalut’ follows, with Kargel’s own atmospheric howls and whistles cannily combining with sun-bright tropical guitars, echoing chords and delay-laden saxophone solos riding the dub-flecked, low-slung groove. The collective’s Balearic influences are explored in more sonic detail on ‘A Gentle Flow’, a shuffling and soft-focus affair marked out by emotive piano & jazz guitar, brushed percussion, sunrise-ready synths and pleasingly stretched-out electronic textures. Neumayer Station return to this drifting, morning-fresh and eyes-closed sound later in the LP, via the wonderous ‘Von der Morgenröte’.

The heady influence of spaced-out dub production techniques comes to the fore on ‘Bassrutscher’, an Alexander Sticht co-production rich in Americana-influenced guitar textures, metronomic dub bass, rim-shot heavy drums, mazy organ and orange-hued sundown sounds. It ushers in the more up-tempo shuffle of ‘Zielgerade’, an inner space, out-of-mind affair whose driving but loose-limbed groove provides a platform for exotic, droning and otherworldly guitar, sax and synth sounds. As with all great albums, Crossings gently builds towards a triumphant and memorable conclusion. The spacey Balearic/kosmische crossover of ‘Feeling Forst’, where darting intergalactic synth sounds rub shoulders with gentle acoustic guitars in a hallucinatory soundscape, tees up closing cut ‘Crossings’, the krautrock-rooted, sax-sporting slab of enveloping late-night beauty that first introduced listeners to Neumayer Station back in 2023. It’s a fitting conclusion to a staggeringly good debut album.