Biography
Flanger is:
-Atom Heart playing Rhodes, Motion Bass/ Programming
-Burnt Friedman playing Gretsch Drums, Percussion/ Programming

The Flanger project was founded in 1998 by Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom Heart)and Bernd Friedmann (aka Burnt Friedman),who have both been active in the music business since the early 1990s.The two musicians
met up to program their first album "Templates" in Santiago de Chile in 1998.Their musical goal was to generate their own vision of non-repetitive,organic and extremely complex music that is far removed from the well-trodden paths of techno and other established styles of so-called contemporary music. "Templates" was released the following year on Ntone/Ninja Tune,together with separate 12-inch pressings of several tracks. The success of this debut album convinced Flanger to do a second LP,which was recorded in Santiago de Chile, in March 1999. Entitled "Midnight Sound", this was released on Ntone/Ninja Tune November 2000. The release of "Midnight Sound"prompted Uwe Schmidt and Bernd Friedmann, who are renowned for their very special shows, to consider the idea of live Flanger presentations.


Review: PitchForkMEdia
Screenwriting guru Robert McKee once joked that the shortest book possible would be a history of German humor. He said this, I believe, without having read a single interview with Markus Popp. The dour German stereotype may be common for people in the States raised on "Sprockets," but it's just not accurate. Exhibit A: Flanger.
Look at the front of this record cover: Atom Heart and Burnt Friedman standing on the barren surface of some distant planet in full astronaut gear. Only it's not really them, just some cropped press photos of their faces pasted into jpegs pulled from the NASA site. They look so damn goofy standing there on that planet, but they're clearly in on the fun. And then there are long-winded the liner notes, written by a fellow named James Dean Brown, which claim, "The only way of downscaling Burnt's musical-conviction potentiometer is to previously install a logical bypass."
On second thought, Mr. Dean Brown could be on to something. A potentiometer is an instrument for analyzing electrical potential, and Outer Space/Inner Space is vastly superior to last year's Midnight Sound because it contains so much more possibility. Both records are basically light cocktail jazz manipulated via computer, but where the source of Midnight Sound's crackly, raw material seemed nebulous, Outer Space/Inner Space is a crisp recording of live musicians who put some energy in their playing. Hearing this more "natural" approach bumping against the electronics gives the record a great deal more tension than the sleepy Midnight Sound could muster. It also makes the listening more fun. The third track, "The Men Who Fell from Earth," is a nice illustration of what I'm talking about. The opening section blends percussive static hits with manipulated drum runs of inhuman tempo, and then the piece abruptly transforms into lazy downtempo lounge for a couple of minutes before accelerating once again into spastic glitch music. Each individual part is rendered properly, but you'd never imagined that they could fit together so well, or indeed, that they could fit together at all. "Lo Dernier Combat" is another track that seamlessly modulates from Medeski, Martin and Wood-style instrumental jazz to abstract electronics and back again. The skill here is in the transitions-- not only are they not jarring, but each stylistic shift seems perfectly logical. Odd guitar treatments crop up here and there, courtesy of enigmatic Cologne musician Josef Suchy, lending another intriguing texture.
The tracks that fall outside the conceptual framework still impress with their melodic sense and rhythmic interplay. Though the album was no doubt edited on computer and it's quite possible that none of the musicians actually performed together (the notes list separate recording studios for each of the instruments), the infectiousness of the Latin beats is undeniable, and the three Chilean percussionists credited help give the record an impressive syncopated pulse. "Inner Spacesuit," in particular, absolutely bubbles with rhythm, and it always makes me wish I had a drink of some kind in my hand when I hear it. But this straight-up track has a surprising coda, as the rhythm fades and Suchy's processed guitar harmonics take over, sending the piece spinning off in a completely different but equally attractive direction. Both funny ha-ha and funny strange, Outer Space/Inner Space is worth exploring.

Review: bbc.co.uk
It's jazz, Jim, but not as we know it....Flanger's two previous records on Ntone recast early 1970s spacey jazz fusion as the product of a software engineers fantasy. Blurring the lines between what's been played and what's been digitally generated, Burnt Friedman and Uwe Schmidt's music was playful, eartickling and occasionally ridiculously funky. Friedman's solo work in particular (check 1999s wonderful Con Ritmo) has been playing with notions of real and cyber musicianship, forcing crisp, funk derived drum patterns into hyperspeed blurs that Jack DeJohnette would be hard pressed to replicate.

Inner Space takes things a bit further by introducing real instruments into the mix, courtesy of a bunch of Latin American rhythm players and Danish soloists. The resulting brew is warmer and more organic than previous outings; Thomas Hass's tenor and Carsten Skov's vibes provide a harmonic sophistication and coherence lacking in Schmidt and Friedmann's limited keyboard skills, leaving the duo to concentrate on providing texturally rich and rhythmically propulsive backdrops, which is after all what theyre best at. The music here is in a constant state of flux; sonically incredibly rich and marrying warm Zawinul-esque Fender Rhodes piano with digital glitches, dubby atmospherics, intricate layers of percussion and Friedmans trademark drum manipulations.

The second half of "La Dernier Combat" drags the propulsive funk of Herbie Hancocks Thrust into the 21st century with a ferocious slap bass and percussion dialogue topped off by fat analogue synth riffs, while the opening "Outer Space/Inner Space" is possibly the strongest track, mainly due to Hass's probing tenor explorations which dig deep into Friedmann's intricate rhythmic matrix. Elsewhere the single "Inner Spacesuit" is a clavinet soaked groovathon, while the closing "Himflug" suggests the MJQ as the inhouse band on board a Cuban space station. Flanger's strongest suit is their refusal to lazily appropriate notions of jazz cool in the manner of many of the so called 'Nu Jazz outfits'. Theirs is a brave new world where the tenor saxophone and the Powerbook can sit happily alongside each other in a virtual jam session. (Inner)Space is the Place.



From England
Label: Ninja Tune
Year: 2001
Genre: Electronica
Style: Electro-Jazz, Leftfield, Trip-hop, Space-Jazz, Contemporary Jazz



Track Title
1. Outer Space/Inner Space
2. Galak
3. The Man Who Fell From Earth
4. Inner Spacesuit
5. Le Dernier Combat
6. Unosietecero
7. It Ain't Rocket Science
8. Hirnflug