Having established himself as the quintessential pop-techno icon of the Kompakt camp, Köhncke unzips his latest full-length effort. Doppelleben (translation: “double life”) is a veritable smorgasbord of discolicious 4/4 bumpery, metro-sensual symphonics, and acoustified ballads, all of which sizzle with Kohncke‘s uncanny blend of pop sensibility and digital synthetics. By now, any true fan of Kompakt kulture has come to terms with Köhncke‘s big-hearted (German) vocals, but those less inclined to sing along with the accompanying lyric sheet can still lose themselves in the meticulously-programmed instrumental half of the album.
Various Artists Elektrabel: For Various Reasons
The artist-development branch of Jeff Mills‘ Axis label, 6277 is fitted with its first full-length LP complements of Czech Republic technician Tomas Hartl (Elektrabel), who has been the imprint‘s dominant voice thus far. For Various Reasons confirms the label‘s directional success; Hartl delivers an outstanding double-disc techno array hardwired with brass-tax sequencing and a polished factory edge. Tracks like “Ampule” and “Crocks” serve it up with precision-machined 909 drum programming and cold, hard analog synth robotics while “Count To 18” and “Personal” target the cortex with surgical minimalism and morphing atmospheric cycles. This mission is a go.
The Books Lost and Safe
This third album finds The Books delving deeper into the world of song. Not that this is a traditional singer/songwriter record by any means, but it is a different animal than their giddy, sample-driven debut, Thought for Food. The Books‘ Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong no longer serve their samples sliced and diced en masse; instead, they employ them more sparingly, using snippets of eccentric dialogue and field recordings as lyrical and rhythmic fodder for their often ingenious and painstakingly crafted songs. The result is less overtly scintillating, but offers its own uniquely melancholic pleasures.
Tarwater The Needle Was Traveling
Tarwater‘s 1998 release Silur threw me for a most thrilling loop. Its combination of spare, atmospheric electronics, guitar, and understated-to-the-point-of-deadpan vocals-with lyrics culled from Cousteau and other unlikely sources-was pure auditory butter. The needle has traveled a long way since then and Tarwater is now a much more conventional art-pop band. Their sophisticated, slightly off-kilter songs still swing and mesmerize; however, they offer little in the way of revelation.
Telescope Zoom
This unexpected gem of an album instantly recalls the laidback, jazz-licked downbeat of the late ‘90s Eastern European scene, the tender glitch-house of Matthew Herbert, and the minimalist aesthetic of Steve Bug as it moves gently through warm, full-bodied, mid-tempo tunes flecked with bongo drums and delicate acoustic guitar. Far from hands-in-the-air dancefloor stuff, this album appeals primarily on the cerebral level. This is all the more interesting, given that the standout track, “The Horse,” has one of the more bizarre lyrics in dance music today-a fault turned into a feature once that luscious bassline rolls in.
Sir Alice N? 2
Sir Alice‘s exploration of technoid art rock is head-scratchingly obtuse at moments, fearlessly self-indulgent at others. This is not a good thing. “La Maîtresse” drones on endlessly in digitized French, “Technotronic” sounds like Kid606 screwing with Cibo Matto samples, and “L‘homme Qui Vient D‘en Bas” is just plain scary. Yet all is not lost-“Ballad” sends PJ Harvey-esque moaning through a fun-house effects processor, “Bouda” succeeds mightily with its electropunk recklessness, and “Onanisme” has a dark, lusty quality that‘s almost cinematic in feel, but it‘s certainly not enough to save Nº 2 from the rubbish bin.
Edan Beauty and the Beat
Drawing a link between the psych-folk of Pearls Before Swine and the fast rap of Percee P is a formidable challenge. Beauty and the Beat, the impossibly ambitious sophomore release from Edan, amalgamates these two genres with deft symmetry while maintaining an album-wise cohesion. Moving away from the heavy Marley Marl beats that dominated his debut-and distancing himself from the self-appointed moniker “the Quincy Jones of lo-fi”-his production now resembles the sonic assault of Phil Spector or the foreboding doom of David Axelrod. Earnest and reverential encyclopedic odes to hip-hop and prog rock act as an anti-“Losing My Edge.” As psychedelic as Mythos, and as unrelenting as the UltraMagnetic MCs, Edan is a master in possession of his own style, both lyrically and production-wise. Simply put, this is one of the best and most original records to come out this decade.
Nomo Nomo
The recent interest in Afrobeat has yielded a plethora of music varying in degrees of talent (from master musicians to flailing amateurs) and points of origin (Nigeria, Ghana, Brooklyn). What sets Detroit‘s Nomo apart from the sea of indistinguishable Fela-lite groups is the sound. Owing to production by His Name is Alive‘s Warn Defever, they sound like a band with compositions rather than a funk band with an extra percussionist jamming. Sutbly shifting time signatures and grooves, and outfitted with more than capable soloists, Nomo sounds fresh in an otherwise saturated market.
Mia Doi Todd Manzanita
Mia Doi Todd has never been the type of artist people “kind of” like. With her operatic voice and uncomfortably intimate songwriting, one either finds her singularly under-appreciated or dismisses her as an over-hyped LA hipster. Manzanita will do little to dissuade either. Backing by fellow scenesters, including members of Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde, and Brian Jonestown Massacre, lends an AM pop and countrified folk tinge (à la Sandy Denny or Colin Blunstone) replete with strings and horns. Despite all these special guests, Ms. Todd is at her best when accompanied only by her own guitar.
Greyskull Deadlivers
These guys are like a baby Wu-Tang, but even younger than that, like when Wu-Tang was just a sperm and an egg, or a good idea not yet realized. This is altogether a masterful flashback to 1998, so if that‘s your favorite era in hip-hop, this will also be an album after your heart. With analog crackling production and lots of references to biblical characters and samurais, Greyskull wants to make horror rap so badly they threaten that “you‘ll feel [this rap] in your bone marrow,” and rhyme “this planet was my child and I killed him/gave birth to his death now it‘s time to reveal him,” which ends up sounding not scary at all. You‘ll like them for the same reason you can criticize them, because they‘re like a premature Wu-Tang, who even at that age probably rocked the womb.
