1 To Z: Air Liquide - 'The Cloud'

The latest in the '1 To Z' collection, where I'm gradually attempting to list every band and artist that appears in my record collection. Today, here is something I only discovered a little while ago. When I published a review on The Orb's 3CD 'History Of The Future' boxset last year, Monolith Cocktail editor Dominic Valvona suggested that I might also like the music of one Air Liquide. After trying for a few months to track down the recommended 'Nephology', I finally got hold of a copy. Apparently still active, Air Liquide are a German electronic act composed of Ingmar Koch (AKA "Dr Walker") and de:Cem Oral (AKA "Jammin' Unit"). They formed in 1991 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 

'Nephology' was their second studio album and was released in 1994. The German and UK releases of the album contained different track listings, and this fantastic slab of acid-ambient-techno opens the UK release but didn't feature on the German one. The man who introduced me to them recently authored a reappraisal of 'Nephology' twenty years after its release... "Singing from the same hymn sheet as The Orb, and many similar ambient acts, they immerse themselves in a haze of new-age touchy-feely rhetoric, using both celestial horizons and the skies above as the central theme to hang their music to." He also added that "‘Nephology’ does undoubtedly sound of its time to some extent; tied in some respects to a particular epoch, yet though it’s over 16-years old and counting, it somehow rises above sounding dated." Read that full article HERE.