The faculty of imagination is one of de-limitation. To fantasize is to suspend bounds – be it the shackles of reality, norms or genre-conventions. Fittingly, the »Mosaike der Imagination« (mosaics of imagination) by Johannes Schebler are apotpourri of exceedances. Since the late Noughties, the Wiesbaden-based musician enchants with modern means under his alias Baldruin. The result is hard to classify. Does Baldruin make Tribal Ambient? Electronic Neo-Folk? World music? Faced with this mutability, I attempted to describes last year’s »Relikte aus der Zukunft« as a soundtrack to a non-existent Fantasy film.
»Mosaike der Imagination« is colorful in a similar way. It, too, consists of cineastic compositions that summon distinct scenes. We are meeting highwaymen, drumming circles and chimeras. But where »Relikte aus der Zukunft« suggested a narrative, »Mosaike« remain fragmentary. A few compositions are reminiscent of Empyrium’s »Weiland«. Schebler shares its fascination with bucolic-mysticist arrangements, even adopts some of their whisper-singing. Yet, Baldruin is more globally-minded, open for electric modernity – and free from folky traditionalism. 200 years ago, Jena’s early romanticists gave a premonition: »Romantic poetics is still in the making; yes, it is its true nature that it is perpetually becoming, never to be consummated.« In this sense, Baldruin is a neo-romantic: He won’t let himself being tied down.
