Visitors' comments

‘A big compliment for the outstandingly successful stage debut at the Planetarium Bochum on 3 November 2012! It was a pleasure to be at your premiere and it was also my first time to hear you - I've really missed something in the last few years! Scandal!!! I'll make up for it - I promise...!

‘It was an honour to be part of this premiere.....greatly ingenious and full of surprises.....more of this.....!!!!!!

We would like to thank you once again for the fantastic concert. It was very impressive how you put everything together and how well the projections harmonised with the music. The two female voices were magnificent and represented the lively and supernatural element perfectly. Keep up the good work!

‘special things can be repeated with pleasure. a small BIG project that definitely exceeded all expectations. THANK YOU for the place in the (t)spaceship, I'll be back any time!’

‘The concert in the planetarium was certainly one of the best we have ever experienced. The sound was ‘awesome’, the atmosphere made the evening perfect and we want more of it.’

"A very good performance indeed!!"

Concert report 1

ART OF INFINITY "Raumwerk 2012"
Live at Planetarium Bochum

Raum und Zeit
Sa., 3. Nov. 2012 – Art Of Infinity

Space and time...! Space - the dome of the planetarium, which has long since become a second home to connoisseurs and lovers of electronic music. Time - to enjoy and relax, and escape from everyday life in an unrivalled atmosphere.

Another promising concert at the Bochum Planetarium. This time with ‘Art of Infinity’ and ‘Gandalf’. And once again that feeling of being in the centre of it all - in space and time. But this concert was something special.

Although they have been an integral part of the electronic music scene for a long time, but had never performed live before, ‘Art of Infinity’ opened the concert with their stage debut and turned the evening into a great premiere. As I had unfortunately never heard the band before (mea culpa...), I was very excited about this performance. At the same time, the six musicians presented their new album ‘Raumwerk’ and thus provided several novelties in the time-honoured Planetarium.
So there was plenty to be excited about...!

And I hadn't expected what came next! After the first few bars I thought: Well, yeah - I've kind of heard it before, sounds like... but then one surprise after another followed!

‘T ‘N’ T’ - Thorsten and Thorsten and their band managed to link and combine the most diverse musical styles of the last 30 years in such a way that just when you thought you recognised one style, something completely new and different came along.

Synthesiser sequences and effects like those of ‘Jean-Michel Jarre’ in the late 70s and early 80s, broken up by jazzy elements, then again you thought you were listening to ‘Tangerine Dream’ and then you felt reminded of ‘Kraftwerk’. Wasn't that just ‘Schiller’...? But never was a typical musical style or another artist copied. And then the combination of computer sounds with acoustic instruments like the saxophone...! So there was something for every taste and the variety and versatility of the musicians made this concert a unique experience. A slow-motion meteor shower in the starry sky of the planetarium, animated bubbles that seemed to fall from the dome onto the audience and the entire starry sky rounded off the whole thing and allowed the audience to float in a bubble of space and time filled with music.

The crowning glory, however, were the two singers, whose voices were the strawberries on the icing on the cake!

Dear members of ‘Art of Infinity’ - I hope you have laid the foundation for a long tradition of performances at the Planetarium Bochum with your debut, because I think you now have a solid base of old and new fans there who want to see you live on stage regularly from now on! (‘uh3’)

The complete report from ‘uh3’:

http://www.lastfm.de/user/uh3/journal/2012/11/05/5nsgvm_raum_und_zeit

Concert report 2

ART OF INFINITYlive at Planetarium Bochum

The German ambient artists ART OF INFINITY gave their concert debut under the dome of the Bochum Planetarium.

ART OF INFINITY has been around since 1996 and creates atmospheric music paired with influences from ambient, art rock and pop. ART OF INFINITY had released its latest album ‘Raumwerk’ for this event, which also made up the majority of this one-hour concert.

The two singers Eva Wolf and Lenka Ji were completely convincing. Great projections gave this concert an additional flavour. Mastermind Thorsten Sudler-Mainz with spoken word and vocals - a premiere - on ‘Raum und Zeit’, the first single from the new album ‘Raumwerk’.

The musical message of ART OF INFINITIY, namely the fusion of electronic and rock/pop music, was already very clear here. The set was divided into five blocks, which were then interrupted by title announcements. Sometimes it was very floating, but then also very Wave- or Floyd-like.

After the musical introduction of the new album, older pieces from the previous three albums were also played. Once again, Stefan Höllering's very sensitive saxophone playing and Eva and Lenka's vocal interludes were marvellous. Well-deserved applause for a successful debut performance by ART OF INFINITY.

(www.electronic-circus.net)

Concert report 3

Art Of Infinity - Live at Planetarium Bochum 03.11.2012

The music project of the two Cologne-based musicians Thorsten Sudler-Mainz and Thorsten Rentsch kicked things off. For this concert, they had brought a number of fellow musicians on stage and delivered a premiere in this formation. In addition to Stefan Höllering on tenor and electro saxophone (he had already performed live with Thorsten Sudler-Mainz and Thorsten Rentsch on several occasions), Matthias Kraus (keyboards, electric guitar) and the two singers Eva Wolf and Lenka J. were also on stage. Lenka J. had stepped in at short notice as singer Ilona Gerulat, who sang a few songs on the new album ‘Raumwerk’, was unable to perform. Lenka did an excellent job and, if you hadn't known that she had stepped in, you wouldn't have noticed.

With these six musicians and their instruments, the small stage in the Planetarium was completely full. Art Of Infinity's programme mainly consisted of pieces from the recently released new, now fourth studio album entitled ‘Raumwerk’. Eight of the eleven tracks from the new album alone were played that evening. There was also ‘Written In The Sand’, a track from the debut album ‘New Horizon’, as well as three tracks each from the second album ‘Dimension Universe’ and their penultimate album ‘Endless Future’.

After the opening sounds of ‘The Fourth Dimension’, the show started with the opener ‘Raum und Zeit’ from the new CD. The track, in which Thorsten Sudler-Mainz contributes lyrics in a kind of spoken word, is also the band's new single. And it was clear from the concert that they had made the right choice, as the song has a melody that immediately catches the ear. The chanting also has a Kraftwerk feel to it, but without degenerating into a clone of the Düsseldorf formation. The two singers Eva and Lenka also gave us goosebumps with their very sensitive choral singing. With this track, Art Of Infinity blurred the boundaries between electronic, rock and pop music.

Art Of Infinity had divided their set into five blocks, each of which contained several songs. Between the blocks, Thorsten Sudler-Mainz made announcements from time to time. The second block then began with the floating ‘Tunnellichter’. In the song, which also had a hint of Krautrock from La Düsseldorf & Co. as well as wave elements, the vocals once again created a mystical atmosphere, while the most diverse star and planet formations travelled along the dome ceiling of the planetarium. This was followed by the spacey ‘Das Tor’, with sounds that seemed to consist of a spherical mixture of Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. Things got spacy again with the following ‘Glasufo’ and even experimental with the subsequent ‘Sternenhalle’.

The third block was then characterised by older pieces from the Art Of Infinity repertoire. The piece ‘Die Zeit’ then ended the official part of the set. This piece took up the spirit of the song ‘Raum und Zeit’ (Space and Time) and offered electropop-like music, with some sounds reminiscent of the soundtrack to the mystery series ‘The X-Files’ and Kraftwerk. The two singers Eva and Lenka once again shone on this track, their voices matching each other perfectly.

The passages in which the two singers - especially Eva Wolf, who has a broad vocal spectrum to call her own - stepped up to the microphone were very appealing. Whenever vocals came into play, Art Of Infinity's music developed a certain rock/pop character that also fitted well in the Planetarium. The occasional solos by Stefan Höllering on his saxophones also fitted atmospherically into the overall picture of the performance.

Art Of Infinity's performance offered a completely different approach to Gandalf's symphonic set and thus provided plenty of variety that evening. A successful performance by the six musicians.

(Stephan Schelle, Musikzirkus Magazin)

Der Konzertbericht in Deutsch mit Fotos von Stephan Schelle im Musikzirkus Magazin 
http://www.musikzirkus-magazin.de/dateien/Pages/Konzerte/elektronik/art_of_infinity_live_bochum_2012.htm