CD, Janosch Moldau Records, 2005
www.janoschmoldau.com
Starting as a record producer a few years back, Janosch Moldau is now a solo artist that writes, performs and produces his work under his own personal record label. Starting as a couple of tracks that Janosch wrote about his spiritual and religious beliefs, he put his efforts into completing a single (“On My Own”) and has now gone on to complete his first full length album “Redeemer”.
In its own way, a lot of Janosch’s music is somewhat original. Its roots are stuck very firmly in Synthpop territory, but he has added upon it with quite a few elements of IDM, which I must add blends in very well with the albums overall depth and concept. Another thing that I noticed was the way in which the album was designed. With the main focus of the album appearing to concentrate a lot more on the song writing rather than complex sequences and fast paced rhythms.
As I previously mentioned, nearly all of the songs included on “Redeemer” have a message of some sort covering all aspects of spirituality, love, faith, belief and global awareness, to name but a few. Its primary subject matter though seems to lean more towards religion and its effects. This subject in particular is something that I feel can either make or break a record, so I do admire Janosch for tackling something that I know a lot of other artists in his field would normally discard as a theme for an entire album. If this type of subject matter has something that you have strong beliefs in and would like to hear more of in your music, then this would certainly be to your liking. If not however, then I feel that apart from the odd track and an overall well produced sound, you may feel there is a large part of the album that you’d expect with other generic Synthpop albums that is missing. This of course is all down to personal taste, but from my experience this can sometimes play a big part in the overall enjoyment of the music.
[5/10]
— Paul Marcham