Search - Blaine L. Reininger :: Night Air

A Refugee's Dark and Melodic Sountrack of Wandering as Wonde

Pete Magritte | Santa Monica, CA USA | 07/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Moody but upbeat music that bridges time, a perfect melange of '80's pop and art, synthesizers, drum machines and violin. Sort of the thinking person's New Order. First heard this back in, dunno, the mid to late 1980's, and it recalled my years in Europa: the ethereal mistiness of cafes, seductive women, good beer and strong cigarettes, deep conversations and old lands. Reininger, a member of the seminal San Francisco gruppe Tuxedo Moon, and a refugee from the American landscape lights up the Europe of the Mind with such songs as "Mystery and Confusion," a meditation of post world war European culture "and Japanese technology." Reininger's persona and lyrics reflect a world-weary and cynical perspective but only in the service of style, his tongue is always in cheek and the light-and-dark beauty of instrumental tracks such as "El Mensajero Divino" implies a kind of mystical wonder. Reininger's music, like his style, reflects that adage that truth is found in wondering at the world rather than explaining it. Reininger's music evokes the wonder and mystery of the Belgian landscape he inhabited at the time he recorded this album (although the album itself, I believe, was actually made in Paris, where he and his collaborator were starving for their art as reflected in "Birthday Song" where he's raging at all the "half-witted morons" who live for money). It's a grand piece of work, thick and deep and very melodic. Lonely and friendly, all at the same time."