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Foreign Landscapes Image
Metascore
70

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The follow-up to the German artist's 2008 album Ferndorf was recorded with San Francisco's Magik*Magik Orchestra.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. Mojo
    Dec 23, 2010
    80
    His modified piano is used sparingly throughout, making its most telling contribution on Mount hood, a smouldering invocation of the misty Oregon peak--but the complex, emotional ensemble arrangement is what impresses most. [Jan 2011, p.105]
  2. This is clearly and audibly the work of a musician, composer and performer keen to embrace evolution and the possibilities which that opens up - not only within individual tracks or across a release, but also in terms of his overall body of work.
  3. 80
    With a musical voice that is always travelling down a linear path, Foreign Landscapes is a spellbinding new journey into the wave of sonic explorations.
  4. Treatments like this ferret out the striking undertones of quotidian places, making clear the shape of their influence on Bertelmann, while still leaving room for some measure of the listener's own.
  5. Oct 26, 2010
    70
    Compared to Ferndorf, and its staggering highpoint Freibad, it's far more introspective and thoughtful, and requires far more effort to become fully absorbed within. Which, surely, is no bad thing, but you occasionally long for a little whimsy back.
  6. The lack of challenge and the absence at so many points of any thrust, melodic or otherwise, doesn't do justice to the ability of the creator, and that's a terrible shame considering the quality of the highlights.
  7. Oct 25, 2010
    40
    Hauschka has shown much promise in the past, but Foreign Landscapes buries its own experimental leanings under layers of charm and cliche: childish sentiments, cute sounds, and easy references.

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