Air Waves - Warrior - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

2017 . The late Mexican electronic musician Oscar Menzel, AKA Airwaves, only realized a small handful of recordings in his short lifetime (including one under the alias 29), but the two Airwaves discs issued back in the mid-'90s remain one of the many undiscovered gems scattered across the vast graveyard of obscure, one-off electronic music projects and recordings. Released during the era when musicians the world over were firing up banks of synthesizers to inaugurate their own take on the ambient subgenre, Menzel's cosmic creations took the stuff of legend (Eno, Tangerine Dream, Schulze, Namlook, and a gaggle of others) and recontextualized them via sonic easels adorned with fresh daubs of paint. This resulted in such sparklingly effective concoctions as the two-part shimmer festivities of InchBiomechanicalInch, the gorgeous starshine twinkle of InchA Little Twilight MomentInch, and the Steve Roachian broadbase expanse of InchSunset Mists Distant PeaksInch; in short, an exploration of tones and timbers that sounded strangely familiar yet still eerily unplaceable. Menzel's fire burned but for a brief time, but electronic music aficionados can rejoice that his art exists to further illuminate the planet.

Here's the last Scandal Album before Patty Smyth left for a solo career. Talk about going out with the bang; the smash title track and hit Hands Tied join Only the Young; Beat of a Heart; All I Want; Less Than Half, and the rest of this #17 Album, a quintessential slice of stomping '80s pop-rock!

2020 . The late Oscar Menzel, who recorded as Airwaves, left a significant legacy that the electronic music community has routinely failed to acknowledge or come to grips with. An admirer and obvious colleague-in-spirit to pioneers Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Robert Schroeder, Pete Namlook, and so many other recognized synthi boffins, Menzel's small but important catalog bristles with enough ideas to fill dozens of albums, accomplishing within a mere handful of recordings what lesser artists spend a lifetime attempting. The follow-up to his earlier Carpe Sonum issue Biomechanical, Multiverse represents his unreleased fourth work, and as part of his broader oeuvre, will undoubtedly go down as one helluva swan song.