Brockmann and Bargmann’s Licht knows where it comes from but has a life of its own

For sure, glints of Cluster and even flashes of Jean-Michel-Jarre-meets-Vangelis are easily detectable, but there is a twenty-first century energy that goes well beyond the rhythmic and the sonically spatial. The studio layering is never an end in itself, as “Prisma” makes clear with its gorgeous and simultaneously slightly menacing pulsings.

Unsurprisingly, the analogue synths can give a Low-era Bowie feel at times, but this is appropriately displaced by a more forceful industrial soundscape, as in “Sylvester”. It’s this sonic shifting that contributes to the album’s overall effectiveness. Ideas are pushed to the fore but never over-indulged, and tracks such as “Spektrum” remind one of the cumulative force of Japanese band’s Mono’s crescendo-building.

If Licht is an ambitious project, going in different directions from those of most Camera tracks, its success arises out of Brockmann and Bargmann’s risk-taking intelligence and their commitment to a well-defined interplay of sinister savagery and exquisite beauty. Well sequenced, with improvisation that is creative yet also sensibly disciplined, its appeal should extend well beyond the Teutonically-minded.