Last Wave

French electronic music from California: "Last Wave", the fifth solo album by the artist and musician Bernard Xolotl, was originally released on cassette in 1982. He named himself after the Aztec god of lightning and death. His music is influenced by the Berlin school of electronic music. This reissue includes a previously unreleased bonus track (not on vinyl)! As a teen, Bernard Xolotl (born 1951 in France) was introduced to electronic music through the works of musique concrete composers like Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, although he found the early recordings of Pink Floyd to be more inspirational. During the early 1970s, Xolotl began creating music of his own, working in studios across Europe and the US before settling in California in 1974, where he slowly built his own studio. Between 1978 and 1981 he recorded four solo cassette albums. On his album "Last Wave" Xolotl expanded his musical palette with many new instruments such as the Yamaha CS60 and the PPG. Bernard Xolotl on the creating process of "Last Wave": The first "Last Wave" I started early on while still living in San Francisco, as a simple and longish piece which could be used as a background for the concerts I was giving with Daniel Kobialka and Richard Horowitz, both of whom I saw almost every day at that time. However, after I moved to the residential suburb of Marin to build up my studio, I kept adding tracks to it so it just became part of my next album. This was going to have more instruments and progressively, I got to do everything myself, playing and recording one track at a time. But mixing there was still out of the question, so I had to wait for the right opportunity to use the proper San Francisco studio with the best reverbs and acoustics. This took several years in the end and was the last album I didn't mix at home. It was also the last "analogue" album and the "last" many other "things" which made the title very significant in my life ... Two voices on "Last Wave": >> If you like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, and wish Jean-Michel Jarre wasn't so slick, you should explore this album. A critic put it very well once, that Xolotl's best work is "achingly beautiful." Finding these passages is its own reward. (Antony Milosz, 2006) >> "Last Wave" is one of those musical gems that no real lover of electronic music should miss, especially those who appreciate the beautiful and innovative. Xolotl offers an authentic master lesson in what is authentic good avant-garde music. Next to Xolotl, the "modern" ghosts of the day seem ridiculous despite having the support of most media. (Angel Romero, 1984)