Mekanik Kommando

2010 release ** Recorded in 1985 "Shadow of a Rose" is fourth full-length album of Duch new wave act Mekanik Kommando. With this album they decided to leave electronic post-punk and start to play more psychedelic and folk oriented music. "Shadow of a Rose" is extraordinary hybrid of sounds of accoustic instruments and raw analog electronics. Original and unprecedented combination. At the time of its initial release, Mekanik Kommando's fanbase was unsure about how to respond to their fourth full-length „Shadow of a Rose“. Only a few years earlier, the band had performed behind the barricades in support of anarchist squatters. They didn't seem to care about knowing how to play their instruments. They had kept away from conventions. They had bridged the divide between the brooding, desolate concoctions of New Wave and the electronic metrics of Kraftwerk. „Shadow of a Rose“ bore no trivial resemblance whatsoever to their origins and it might as well, since the group had effectively split down the middle, with founding member Lasika Panyigay having left the previous year . Heavily influenced by the Kommando's involvement in theatre-productions, the LP instead featured a dreamy sound, a warm and colourful instrumental palette, cinematic arrangements and progressive song-structures. It didn't go down well at home in the Netherlands, where local media paid all but no attention. In the rest of Europe, however, it would quickly come to be regarded as a classic, turning the formation into a cult-act.