Michael Hoenig - Departure from the Northern Wasteland (1978)

Steve:

In the late 70s, electronic music was entirely new to me. I was not normally drawn to long, static instrumental soundscapes, still being in my Moody Blues/Beatles phase. I don't recall exactly when or why Dan brought this record into the house, but I remember hearing it a lot, and I was unusually fascinated by it. I still am. I found my own copy on CD in college, then got another copy on vinyl years later, and to this day I strongly believe it is the most-played album in my collection. Whenever I can't decide what to play, I just put this on. Whenever I'm exceedingly tired or depressed, I put this on. It takes me to my safe space every time, and I will never tire of it.

In retrospect, I now know that music like this was highly influenced by Tangerine Dream, who pioneered electronic music using sequencers, or synthesizers capable of playing looped repetitive figures. These repetitive figures succeed not only in freeing up melodic space for improvisation on top of the patterns, but the patterns themselves double as a rhythm machine, as their melodic loops, however complex, can repeat often enough to create an implied rhythmic pulse. 

The twenty-minute title track occupying side 1 is like a long train journey through a desolate countryside. The "northern wasteland" never changes, but there is still a strong feeling of movement felt in the music. The pulse of the wheels on the tracks puts you in a trance, and the endless tracts of land provide an infinite canvas for your thoughts. Small details catch your eye such that even a passing bird can impart a fascinating tale of its own if you follow it a while.   

Side 2 contains a similar, shorter piece called "Hanging Garden Transfer" which offers a more ebullient and fast-moving variation on the same theme. After a relatively uneventful drone with overlapping voices ("Voices of Where"), the program ends with a truly lovely piece of music, "Sun and Moon". At only four minutes long, this is an instrumental synth-based piece still using sequenced patterns, but also a discrete song structure, with implied verses, choruses, and a bridge. The lead synth voice sounds a bit like an oboe, making me think this could have been arranged for a world/jazz outfit such as Oregon and been pretty amazing in that form. It's a perfect capper to a near-perfect album and leaves me with a warm feeling in my heart.

Dan:

It warms my heart to hear that this album means so much to Steve personally. I remember that Departure from the Northern Wasteland appealed to me because at the time I was interested in electronic music. Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Terry Riley, and others made some pretty interesting albums in the 1970s and beyond. Departure was one of the best but also the most overlooked. It was Michel Hoenig's first album. I don't know much about him except that he was a very young-looking German guy who went on to make film music. That does not surprise me, given the cinematic effects like Steve's train ride that Departure evokes.

Music like this seems a little time warped. As electronics became thoroughly embedded into rock and popular music, the phrase "electronic music" lost its meaning. The way forward included new genres of techno, new age/ambient, and perhaps others. I followed the ambient trail from Eno to the present, including pioneers such as Kevin Braheny, Harold Budd, Michael Sterns, Robert Rich, and Steve Roach. None of these artists or their contemporaries (e.g., Liquid Mind, Max Corbacho) took the same approach as Michael Hoenig on Journey to the Northern Wasteland, which stands as a neglected classic rightfully situated in the history of prog.