Mandy Mozart - Love For Women [Vienna Struggle 007 Promo]

A concept-loaden thing, this. Techno meets Classical music. A composer '...raised as a man, now wishing to explore feminity and the struggles of women in music while feeling overwhelmed in the era of digitisation...' as the accompanying press sheet states and inspiration taken both from music and poetry of the 1800s, Robert Schumann and Adelbert Von Chamisso to be more precise. All squeezed into a total of nine pieces stretched over the course of roughly 50 minutes, crafted and conceived by Mandy Mozart alongside a total of nine collaborating artists - and four ppl responsible for the artwork altogether. This combination, released via the label Vienna Struggle as their cat.no. 007 only recently, and especially the gender aspect of this album, could be a red flag for many reviewers to not touch this with a ten-foot-pole because any form of criticism or non-celebration of this could come back as a barrage fire of accusations of being 'anti-(whatever)' or '(whatever)phobic' in these overly sensitized, huffy and thin-skinned times. Yet we're giving this a go, leaving the political and sociological dimension out of the equation to solely focus on the music which is as artsy, conceptual, eclectic and artificial as one might've expected. Cold electronic atmospheres entangled in deep Electronica, occasional, sprinkled elements of (Neo)Classical piano tones, fragmented Spoken Words, dark, brooding, post-apocalyptic takes on electronically produced Leftfield Pop of truly cinematic qualities ("Mit Leidenschaft"), somewhat obscure attempts to amalgamate club-focused 4/4 bassdrums and elements of classical music whilst simply ignoring the basic framework and structure inherent in and innate to functional DJ music as well as partially vocal-led PostDubstep x Bassmusic, takes on Ambient x Deep Listening Music and more. A well difficult, heady longplayer that surely presents a few highlights, yet - like many other concept-driven albums as well - lacks true cohesion and flow or simply aims at an audience more focused on the idea of a gesamtkunstwerk and intellectual approach rather than just the music in itself.