Notes at Star's End on Night on Ouddorphttp://www.starsend.org/Spacemusic is largely an untamed art. Despite the logical and technical rigor this music may appear to display, it truly belongs to a sub-planetary religion. So consumed are the zealots within this temple of tech; were an inquisitive outsider to ask about changing chords, the reply would most certainly refer to something measuring either three, six or twelve feet in length. The album Night on Ouddorp (48'10") was made by four men of this realm. Specializing so in the technica of Electronic Music, when Jorg Erren, Bert Fleissig, Jochen Schöttler and Christian Steffen get a tingle from their music they immediately check for a faulty ground wire connection. Night on Ouddorp was realized out of the third of this quartet's annual week-long getaways - which combines under one roof a series of loose jam sessions and gear tweaking with serious arrangement and compositional collaborations. EFSS's intellect works under the forward-looking theme of sound innovation, but their retrograde hearts belong to the Berlin-School. Track after track assails us with bouncing electrified notes echoing in rows of repeating arpeggio patterns. So steeped in machinery is this work that while listening we can almost see the blinking lights, dials, buttons, switches and patch cords of this outfit's rig. Monsters are always hungry, and the sequencer patterns on Night on Ouddorp pump out a soundtrack fit for the chase. With burning foreheads EFSS produce heroic electronic pulsations borne on blood soaked dissonance. While some of the first six titles generate a stable mood and energy, others are given enough juice to dim the lights and have the late night listener looking over their shoulder. Thankfully, the tastefully administered glittering modulated effects and synthetic melodic leads manage to offer humanity and warmth to counter the otherwise mechanical mathematical vibe of this crisp production. The last of these seven works quietly murmurs in a mysterious dark downward dirge, and brings us to the borders of sleep - that unfathomable deep where all must lose their way. True, we may lose our way somewhere in Night on Ouddorp, but never our selves. The ideas found within this genre have a life outside of it - if only known of by the initiated few. What a better world it would be were it populated with more individuals such as Erren, Fleissig, Schottler and Steffen - people who carry with them in their hearts and minds the secret forces of this music.

Review by Sonicimmersionhttp://www.sonicimmersion.org/review.php?letter=E&review=72991Back in November 2010, German musicians Jörg Erren, Bert Fleißig, Jochen Schöttler and Christian Steffen recorded their first set of improvised recordings together, of which an excerpt would end up on the cd-r "Ouddorp Tapes". In 2012, this release would be followed by another week of jam sessions in the same Dutch coastal village, making up "Ouddorp Takes". And now there’s "Night in Ouddorp", derived from recordings made in early 2014 at the same location, featuring a moody and rhythmic set of still analogue-based music where the four musicians take the listener out on a nightly walk through the surroundings of Ouddorp. "Gate", "Oblivion" and "Circling" are tasty and accessible vintage pieces which fans of Redshift, Arcane, Node or Arc will enjoy a lot. Contrary to these, "Haunted" , "Rituals" and "Trails" head into more adventurous territory, pairing darker-oriented atmospheric textures with captivating, powerful Berliner School sequencing and slightly alienating spheres, all without losing the playful, melodic element. The non-rhythmic/sequencer "Dissolution", the final track on the album, even tops the nocturnal mood and feel with immersive, free form soundscapes. This highlight alone makes most curious what these guys could achieve even more in the soundscape genre, leaving out sequencer or rhythm for the most part. All in all, if one is into fresh and quite crispy sounding vintage sonic liquor, the well-produced, mixed and mastered Night in Ouddorp" will make a satisfying trip.

Review by Sylvain Luparihttp://synthsequences.blogspot.de/2014/09/efss-night-on-ouddorp-2014.htmlTwo heads are better than one! So what is happening when there are four? The modular synthesizers are instruments which generate an infinite sound creativity. Imagine now when 4 musicians, each follower of the modular synths, merge inventiveness and boldness! Well, it gives an album to the attractive rhythms, in parallels and criss-crossed, which takes a very enviable place in the dark and territories of an EM to the fascinating analog perfumes. Jörg Erren, Bert Fleißig, Jochen Schöttler and Christian Steffen are four friends and musicians who share their passion for an EM of the analog kind since 2010. Regularly they meet and challenge their capacities with an impressive range of modular equipments. The result of these sessions found itself on two compilations; Ouddorp Tapes in 2011 and Ouddorp Takes in 2012. “Night in Ouddorp” comprises the fruit of such sessions improvised at the beginning of 2014 and reveals to our ears an impressive album which is advantageously in the same lineage as Node 2 and Arc's Umbra, either one of the most imaginative albums of 2014."Gate" plunges us into the magic of “Night in Ouddorp” with a quite small melody livened up by a ritornello of crystal clear sequences and their circular ringings. You remember Edgar Froese's Stuntman? This is the best parallel to be made to describe better this style of gyrating rhythm which meets another line of rhythm, this time with sequences more black and soaked of organic tones. Other sequences, in percussions mode, drum a structure of rhythm lighter and more sober than that of the bright sequences. Another figure of rhythm comes to create havoc in this mixture of sequenced rhythms which pound as much that they serenade in a delicious rhythmic jumble where 4 phases of rhythms criss-cross and where we are free to choose which one will make dance best our imagination. One of the numerous charms of “Night in Ouddorp” is this sensation of tension, of mysticism which encircles its some 50 minutes. Here, there is a subtle spectral melody which roams through this attractive pattern of mixed rhythms which seem to be inspired by Tangerine Dream and mainly Edgar Froese. The other charm is these rhythms which jump up with a thick cloud of sequences to tones as different and divergent as their directions. Like in "Oblivion" where our feet bang instead of our fingers when the rhythm binds itself to these bass sequenced technoïd pulsations which hammer a vertical structure of rhythm where dances a mass of rebel keys. Heavy and mysterious "Haunted" makes roar out its industrial machines on a loud rhythm. A rhythm which makes its keys scamper in the twilights of this Orc industry which redden the hell over the now decimated and carbonized forests of Bilbo Baggins' adventures. Still there, this rhythm is buried by lines of sequences which are pounding, breathing and dancing in an intense static magma. It's between ['ramp] and Redshift. Totally infernal! The structure of rhythm on "Circling" pays tribute to its name with lines of sequences which zigzag and join to hammer a rhythm which sparkles with its finely jerky agreements in beautiful veils of Mellotron which fill the atmospheres of ethereal caresses. Our fingers are dancing with our imagination. I like these moods of sordid where roams a ghostly melody. And "Ritual", the sublime of the sublimes, feeds my passions with a wonderful music, deserving of the best horror movies. A spectral singing roams over a nest of snores of an animal and of its thousand wires and knobs. The air is as well mesmerizing as frightening with devilish hummings which wakes a line of sequences of which the curt steps entail other pulsations just as much jerky. A soft Mellotron comforts our anxiety and follows the delicately jerky jolts of sequences. And we always hear the rustles of the animal and the spectral melody which turns and turns. The ears riveted to our loudspeakers we notice hardly another line of sequences, to tones of light metal, and another one, with melodious chirpings, to give more relief to a track which spreads its satanic hold up to its last snores. Outstanding EM! "Trails" follows very closely the finale of "Ritual", we even hear here these muffled organic pulses pounding, by offering a structure of bouncing rhythm. Sequences skip and hop in a controlled anarchy where float ethereal clouds and of which the sweetness watches over a herd of keys which threatens all the time to overflow in a rhythmic and harmonious phase which gets closer to that of "Gate". "Dissolution" drags us in the territories of dark and ambient music of EFSS. It's a dark piece of EM with synth waves which crawl of their slow oscillations and buzz of their linear reverberations with a ghostly melody which sighs in the background. We have the impression to be at one thousand leagues beneath the ground, or under the sea with submarine noises, or still to be alone in the cosmos so much the sensation of solitude assails our ears.“Night in Ouddorp” is a totally unexpected surprise. The kind of thing which occurs that too rarely and which restores to EM its letters of noblesse. It has to be tidied up next to Node 2 and to Umbra from Arc. Hat to all of you Jörg Erren, Bert Fleißig, Jochen Schöttler and Christian Steffen!