ROME - Gärten Und Strassen (2020)

"Gärten und Strassen" is the second instalment in a series of releases featuring exclusively martial ambient material and "industrial" collages, partially reminiscent of earlier ROME works such as "Hate Us and See if We Mind" (2013), "House of Stone" (2014) or parts of the "Die Aesthetik der Herrschaftsfreiheit" trilogy (2011). Whereas ROME's oeuvre usually features lots of guitar work, "Gärten und Strassen" focuses on complex industrial loops, unconventional bruitist arrangements and instrumental ambient collages.

The images evoked by these martial soundscapes (mostly made of restored period audio material and found sounds) transport us back to Europe's blood-drenched past, when ideologies were battling each other to the death on European soil. This time the listener is dragged into the Parisian underworld under German occupation. Like Vergil in Dante's "Divina Commedia", an officer and flaneur with a strong affinity for the culture of the occupied territory leads us through the various circles of hell, a stroll through a burning city and the rebellious communist underground and the "salons" of the bohème. In the twilight between duty and doubt, death and dishonour.