Der Plan - Zurück In Die Atmosphäre - 0169

With Music For Dreams collectors’ series, we aim to bring you something a little out there. After eclectic contributions from Jan Schulte, Moonboots and most recently Basso, we’ve lent the slot to DJ soFa. As always, he’s been granted supreme curatorial sovereignty, and trust us, he’s held us to our word on that one.

On this double LP, the Belgian sonic globetrotter takes us on a galactic joyride through the mystifying reality of childhood - and a trip, it is. While soFa has had a soft spot for these obscure children’s pieces for a large part of his life, the compilation itself has been 2.5 years in the making.

That’s time spent handpicking old pieces and producing new ones with young collaborators, mostly by means of analogue synthesizers and vintage drum machines. Two tracks on here, the ones by Zahn and Oslo Karamell, are in fact creations of parent/child collaboration.
The result is a thematically and sonically homogenous collage of cosmic children’s music. Full of synaesthetic curiosities, it immerses the listener in all kinds of creative ways, nudging you down hidden experiential pathways. It’s both hyperreal and magical, with important lessons for young and old alike in an increasingly disenchanted world.

soFa starts us off with Milo Kolarov’s interpretive exercise in sonic imagery ‘Analogue Beam’, a story about animal characters, presented to us as distinct motifs of bleeps and blitzes. Next up is the surreal jigsaw puzzle dub ‘Totti und Pippo’ by Jah Limonardi Und Die Kleine Gräfin Dubski. Here, we come bouncing on giant, iridescent mushrooms, lulled deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole by incantations of a child’s voice.
‘Der Kleine Roboter’ by Volkers Musikspiele gives us a classroom choir performing a cheerful verse about being little robots, suspended beneath the droning of an icy locomotive synth. Two layers, subverting and transmuting each other.
On the B- and C-side, our host for the hour spins us into a 16-bit midi mania straight outta the 90’s Nintendo-sphere. Palla Templouf’s ‘Ping en Keun’ evokes the ominous mood of unknown threats lurking behind every corner, while Jan Turkenburg’s ‘In Hyperspace’ takes us through uncharted galaxies searching for lost space-treasures.
Rounding off, ‘Pêle-Mêle’ twists a non-sense nursery rhyme mantra around a trudging bassline, while Thomas Natschinksi’s ‘Robotertanz’ returns to the robot-theme in a 70’s-inspired, hypnagogic space-funk-ballad. One of the few songs on the compilation that actually sounds like something out of the vast rock-pop continuum we’re familiar with.

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