“Niko breathes music.” So says Cosmic Winnetou label head Günter Schlienz about Niko Lazarakopoulos, whose trikorder23 project is as organic and effortless as the process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. It’s easy to envision Lazarakopoulos’s circulatory system relying on elements composed of microscopic musical notes instead of protons, neutrons, and electrons, the life-sustaining matter riding cosmic staves and magic into Lazarakopoulos’s lungs and bloodstream. What emanates therefrom is a glowing, shimmering wave of euphoria couched in ancient secrets translated via trikorder23. A rising tide and boats, etc.
Indeed, as Lazarakopoulos exhales, those around him are caught up in it. On much time no horse, trikorder23 welcomes its “clubmembers,” Stuttgart experimental music luminaries and Cosmic Winnetou satellite artists Cristoph Szeteli, Joachim Henn, Klemens Rack, Michael Herm, and Roland Wending. Together, they fall under the trikorder23 spell, following Niko Lazarakopoulos down dusty paths of self-discovery and adventure. Like a psychedelic kraut/post-rock hybrid or an instrumental Olivia Trevor Control scaled waaaay back, trikorder23 takes fantastically subdued (and other oxymoronically constructed) trips among itself, mixing its own acoustic and electric orchestration with its surroundings and creating a hybrid reality where tune = breeze, and every physical movement is a hit in (sometimes tenuous) rhythm. It’s ambient music only in the sense that the only ambience IS music.
Nice trick.
So it’s in the air, it’s in our lungs, and much time no horse documents the transformation of the surroundings of anywhere it’s played into a field or a trail or a forest, marking the way forward with radiant visibility and stunning accuracy. No longer will you be stuck in your stuffy Stuttgart (or wherever) studio or loft or warehouse space or anywhere — you’ve been freed by this thing. This is trikorder23’s second release on Cosmic Winnetou, and here’s hoping there are many more to come. I like this idea of alchemical atmospheric changes and constant adventure wherever I am. I could use more of it.
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