In June 2020, Michael Rother packed his seven things, including a selection of his favorite instruments and effects, and set off with a fully loaded trunk from Bevern-Forst, where he has lived on an old farm since 1973 and has been performing for half a century, sometimes solo, sometimes with companions (Hans Joachim Roedelius, Dieter Moebius, Brian Enoet al.) is writing the great chapters of music history with great impact. The destination of the two-day car journey is Pisa. Not a holiday. Rother will stay in Italy and will live there with Vittoria Maccabruni, an Italian music enthusiast. The paths of the two musicians crossed in 2005, when Rother was on tour in Italy with his friend Moebius. 15 years later, now a couple in private too, they entered into a remarkable musical partnership, bringingAs Long As The LightIn a completely unpretentious way, sharp contrasts challenge, mix and complement each other. In musical dialogue they find unexpected forms. The sound worlds they create are shaped by these new perspectives. Something unique is created.

But let's go back a step. In the summer, Vittoria Maccabruni, a musician who was completely unknown to the public until then, showed the legendary guitarist thebits and pieces,which she has been working on in her quiet little room for a long time, finds enthusiastic support and encouragement from him. When their living and working spaces merge in Pisa, the exchange between the two grows into a joint project. On the basis of Maccabruni's extensive material, they develop a shared vision - loosely based on Conny Plank's motto "Grabbing the good parts and showing them in the best possible way". The duo goes into revision, selects, grinds and files in order to then develop some extensive, meandering pieces from Maccabruni's often edgy and untamed electronic fragments in interaction with Rother's structuring concepts and wave-like, flowing guitars. The result of this collaboration manifests itself under the titleAs Long As The Lighta fresh joy of playing in eight songs, which also breaks new ground in terms of Rother's broad work, which now spans half a century. There is plucking and cracking everywhere, sharp-edged, mechanical and often threatening - only to reconnect with the unmistakable harmonies in the next moment, to approach them, to be enveloped by them or to dance on them. Vittoria Maccabruni creates predominantly dark moods with her sound constructions, which then create a mutual play of emotions in the song with Michael Rother's melodies and guitar harmonies. Warmth sets in. The eight pieces follow a high compositional complexity, are made up of countless layers that overlap, bump into and stir up. Each of these layers brings with it its own, intense feeling - the musical debut of the duo Rother/Maccabruni is thus presented in an infectious vitality and combines into an abstract dramaturgy that leaves plenty of room for interpretation, for one's own images and countless stories. Travel music, about setting off and arriving, about new horizons. Or: music for people with imagination.

We close our eyes and open our ears. Dynamic images emerge, of mighty buildings, city and rocky landscapes, oscillating somewhere between the future and the past, flooded with light, then again in shadow, often in the flowing contrast of black fields and bright colors. It becomes clear: the opposites that these abstract sound images tell of belong together - a positive field of tension that is rooted in the atmospheres that the Italian and the German explore.

So let’s take a walk through the album:Edgy Smilesbegins with fascinating, slightly dissonant synth bells, finds room to breathe, tears back and forth, merging two musical figures into a new being.Exp 1then shows itself in the reinvention of a wave music, combining a rolling rhythm with moments that evoke the visionary moments of the Krautrock of the 1970s. In the third piece,You Look At Me,Maccabruni's dark, gentle voice can be heard for the first time, an exception that gives the melancholic song even more weight and sends it on the trail of an enchanted encounter. Rother's guitars are recognizable, bring a common thread to the album, even if they never push themselves into the foreground, always remaining in attentive dance with Maccabruni's sounds, or, as in the followingCurfewed,distort, only come across as a subtle hint.See Throughmoves sonically underwater, rises to a clubby sound of the 1990s, relies entirely on mantric repetition.Forget This,interspersed with snippets of Maccabruni’s voice, then takes his time, wading tentatively through a shadowy zone, seems to be searching for peace and silence, but remains – driven by the vocalcut-upsthe Italian woman – restless.Codrive Methen a breathing machine brings to mind, it could also be the score of a twitching experimental film or a scene in the style of a David Lynch film that tells of a meeting of inner demons. In the dramaturgy of the record, the song is the meandering extreme of a reflection of darkness that is unusual for Rother, and also finds hope in its tentative structure. The last piece, a brilliant, sprawling finale, bears the title in telling simplicityHappy (Slow Burner).And this wonderful album ultimately leaves you in this emotional state, even though – or perhaps because – you have been through a real rollercoaster while listening. But that is what makes good music: it creates intensities that do something to you. And yes,As Long As The Lightabove all, makes you happy.

–Hendrik Otremba