Demob Happy

First published at The Line of Best Fit.
If the words “German electronica” conjure images of austere-looking men standing motionless behind synths in mono-coloured suits, or the “nihilist” baddies in The Big Lebowski, To Rococo Rot might help you abandon the stereotype. Stefan Schneider and brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok are a Berlin-based electronica and post-rock trio who have been [...]

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FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT
7/10
Synth pop is apparently making a big comeback in 2009, I say apparently because I don’t listen to the radio, watch TV or live in an English-speaking country, so it’s easy to shield myself from the probably excessive hype surrounding artists such as, say, Little Boots, Empire Of [...]

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“Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head”
8/10
Genre-bending Hot Chip have not only released some of the singles of the year but one of its best albums. As with Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley recently, mid-way into the ‘noughties’ we are starting to see some real wit and invention in pop music that may [...]

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Deconstructed disco
7/10
One of the main men (alongside James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy) behind DFA and former member of Six-Finger Satellite, Juan Maclean’s debut is damaged electro with a dark heart. For all its inferences to robotic disco, this is not a Daft Punk album (despite the similarity in name to that band’s latest: Human After [...]

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Leftfield on the leftcoast
6/10
Electronic music for the Swedish Leftcoast is an accomplished collection of deep house tracks that never quite surpasses the tones and structure of its genre. Naively, I bought this on the strength of the customer reviews on Amazon. What the other reviews aren’t telling you though, is that this is more goatee-stroking [...]

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Unrelenting
3/10
I don’t really see the point of this. Jason Forrest - aka DJ Donna Summer - likes to cut and paste old disco and funk together in a kind of post modern mish-mash that is more IDM than Avalanches. It is click-and-cut of the most filtered, tinny variety, there is nothing of the [...]

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Beautiful Otherness
8/10
No ordinary chill-out act, Bent have improved immeasurably on their debut, Programmed to Love, with an album of strange eccentric beauty and shimmering detail. ‘King Wisp’ opens things gently with ethereal gospel voices and aquatic strings. ‘An Ordinary Day’ pitches a heavily distorted soulful vocal sample over disco rhythms, pumping basslines and [...]

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