You never know what you might get from the challengingly eclectic FatCat label, but whatever it is, you know it’s going to be some kind high caliber artist working off the beaten tracks (especially the beaten indie rock paths!). Still, you wonder who at the label had the temerity to sign and promote German composer Volker Bertelmann , a pianist by trade whose classical chamber music bears no hint of rock whatsoever, as if it had never been invented. Most of the time in fact, it’s the strings of the San Francisco 12-piece Magik*Magik Orchestra that hold sway on Foreign, his second LP, a busy, beautiful string quartet ruling over playful woodwinds and brass sections and the author’s keyboards, as if a Mendelssohn or Chopin concerto were on the program rather than any pop music, however baroque. Repeatedly, one wishes some deep, breathy voiced singer might step forward to add rich vocal melody and detail to the intriguing compositions, to combine the classical and pop element so inherent in, say, The Beatles’ strings-and-voice masterpiece “Eleanor Rigby,” one’s favorite Eric Matthews song, or the many classically-attuned choices on Colin Blunstone’s spectacular first post-Zombies LP, One Year and Jeremy Enigk’s Return of the Frog Queen . But Bertelmann lets his arrangements speak only in the orchestral, whether his plaintive and languid piano interludes (the best tracks are built around this instead, such as the standout “Mount Hood” and to a lesser extent, the more ensemble-based “Snow”) or in the childlike nervousness of the more anxious, string-jumpy “Iron Shoes” and “Union Square.” Most of the mini-sonatas may be named for places the composer has called on in his wide travels, but it’s also left to one’s imagination as to how this music evokes such locales. What one is left with, though, is some richly inspired classical music, little pocket concertos rather than any grand symphonies, that hold their own for the movies of your own remembered romantic places in your head. (fatcat-usa.com)
