Review Summary: You know what? Let's dance!
NOTE: The album is UNRATED
It is notable how a record released more than fifteen years ago can sound this good and still feel modern.
All Music Has Come To An End may be a harsh declaration, but considering that the recording actually sounds better than a considerable amount of modern techno releases, one is tempted to strongly agree. Unfortunately, as one reviewer put it, this German-based artist of Chilean origin is more respected than well-known, something that should not surprise anyone anymore. Probably best remembered for his late 90s project Super_Collider with Jamie Lidell, Vogel has remained to this day a revered figure in the scene --releasing for a long time records on the same label as another pivotal techno artist, Surgeon--, even if his talent demanded him to extend the scope of his work to further musical realms.
Vogel's brand of techno is intense and energetic, full of creativity and interesting details. If techno music is primarily targeted for the club, often ignoring that some people listen to it outside that environment, Vogel certainly has no trouble pleasing both camps.
All Music Has Come To An End is techno at its finest, but also displays a wider arrays of sounds that helps in making it a much more interesting listen, presenting a richness of sound that is more akin to that found in IDM productions. While the tracks are faithful to the techno model, featuring frenetic beats and powerful synth lines, they benefit from Vogel's inclination to experiment and come up with well-designed and unique sounds to complement the already pulsating rhythms. A track like "Sentinel" certainly is classic techno in its simplicity, with that pounding, trance-inducing beat dominating the space, but Vogel plays with dynamics and texture as well, rendering the pieces a lot more diverse and distinctive than your usual techno. Tracks like "Plastered Cracks" or "Survive The Peace" are about the beats as much as they are about sound design and progression, giving the impression to actually evolve and mutate, even when they remain bounded to a rather fixed frame. This is why "All Music Has Come To An End" (the track) can abuse repetition on the surface, when in fact it continues to change and present new details to the listener.
The above qualities alone should guarantee, at the very least, a fine listen, but the package is rounded when taking into consideration that
All Music Has Come To An End is catchy and accessible too; that is, for a techno album. Vogel for sure knows how to create a beat and assemble a track that kills it on the dance-floor, but also knows this kind of music does not have to be hermetic and rigid, and it can too draw in the listener while pumping the beats directly to his veins. While 15 years later this particular sound might not appear so innovative, the album still sound fresh and alive to this day, attesting the artist's prowess in the studio: very few artist can pull off techno as Cristian Vogel.
