Sky on the Ground by Markus Reuter and Stefano Castagna
Release date: October 17, 2025Label: iapetus
How did this pass me by last year? How did this slip by me? The answer, I may never know. I’ve always been a supporter of Markus Reuter after hearing Stick Men’s Prog Noir album released ten years ago. It consists alongside Reuter but Crimson alumni Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto. For me, Stick Men are like the canvas of carrying the continuation of what Robert Fripp had left for them to pick up the pieces.
Reuter was like a revelation for me. I had no idea on what to expect. From his collaborations between The Crimson ProjeKCt, Anchor and Burden, Europa String Choir, Tuner, Tim Motzer, Fabio Tentini, Asaf Sirkis, and Ian Boddy, you never know what to expect from the multi-instrumentalist.
That and his collaboration with Stefano Castagna which goes back to the first time they worked together in 2023’s Sea of Hopeless Angels which could see as a free-rock improvisation album. Before that, they worked together when Stefano engineered Reuter’s 2022 album Truce 2, released on the MoonJune label. Now they’re collaborating with each other again on their latest album, Sky on the Ground.
It has proven to be a free sentiment to be serving in a shape of form as they continue to progress more in the territories they face. Listening to this album which goes back from Markus’ vast archives of the last 30 years, is like visioning a piece of painting, brought to life with this incredible music in a way the duo has layered in the shape and direction it is on here.
With the usage of guitars, soundscapes, harmonium, glockenspiels, and sonic threads, it has proven itself to show an incredible life form the way Reuter and Castagna unfolds its artistic boundaries. There are moments where the album goes into this enormous fiery electronic beat throughout ‘What Will I Be’ before going into their romantic side with a strong earn to lift us skywards for ‘The Shape of Tomorrow’.
Then heading into a flamenco cavernous voyage with a surreal undertone to ‘Rise With Them’ while honoring the late, great Vangelis during ‘Falling Through Silence’ which speaks of the recording sessions for Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult classic Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford. Plus, bits of the Frippertronic levels to go with Reuter’s arrangements to show how much he knows his source material, very well.
You have to understand that both of these artists want to create their own film score with the same routine in a way Brian Eno, David Bowie, the Berlin School of Music, and Trent Reznor had done many years ago. And with Sky on the Ground, it is an ultimate trip into the unknown, not knowing where the direction Markus and Stefano will take us next.
