If there’s anything at all that I’d be more than eager to label the musical equivalent of the mixture of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s the combination of dark, echo-filled minimal techno landscapes with moody goth textures. The likes of Superpitcher and Michael Mayer are oft labeled the pale-skinned, fanged posterboys of this sort of thing, but with their recent voyage into funkin’ around that is the Supermayer album, it’d be easy to assume the whole damn darkness is dead.
Not so, thankfully.
One of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, “new-release” music websites, consistently pushing forward sounds and artists eighteen steps ahead of the Hype, is Manchester, UK-based Boomkat. I freely admit that, nine times out of ten, when a new tune or a new band/artist begins eating up all my time and laptop memory, it’s usually something I discovered by being beaten over the head with snarky, snappy prose related to said piece of music from the folks at Boomkat. Their weekly “must-have” list is exactly that-they copped Various Production, Modeselektor and Burial while most people were still thinking Beth Ditto the second coming of, uh, whatever she’s supposedly the second coming of.
To wit, when I read the Boomkat review of When Horses Die…,the new album by seminal German minimal experimentalist pioneer and all-around freakin’ legend Thomas Brinkmann, whose last album, Lucky Hands, was one of my unsung and forgotten favorite full-listening experiences of 2005, I was struck not just by the fact that I was totally unaware Brinkmann had done anything new since 05 but by Boomkat smacking this new album straight into my vein with necessity:
Boomkat writes:
Strangely enough however, here we avoid the stuttering Minimal experiments of his more popular work and are introduced to his electro-pop side. Of course this isn’t electro pop as we now know it, The Gossip are nowhere to be seen and there’s nary a haircut in sight, but think Depeche Mode, think Human League, think Factory and you’ll be on the right tracks.
Now, how the hell does one argue with that?
The world, at least my aural world, is made better, especially on this gloomy, rainy Georgia day, by the fact that they were 100% spot-on, as they always are. Released on Brinkmann’s self-owned Max Ernst record label, When Horses Die… is a razor-sharp, gloom-drenched rainstorm of minimalist electro-pop, heavy on the low-end, the synth pads and the trembling vocal moan of Brinkmann’s own voice. Both a dance-floor record and a home listening record (not to mention something that could work in the bedroom, or the kitchen floor, for the more adventurous), When Horses Die… is, to me, both the grimmest and most welcome piece of sonic experimentation yet lay to wax by Brinkmann. It’s only complimented by the fact that these 10 pieces of German Gothro (who knew that genre was still alive) are also the most listenable, the most song-structured, tracks he’s ever done.
Several touchpoints could be used to explain the musical place of “Meadow”, but to me this track will always sound like Nick Cave’s reserved side making minimal tech. Think Nick the gothic storyteller, not Nick the fire-and-brimstone preacherman, playing with hi-hats, and you’ve got the picture. “Meadow” is awash in creeping ambiance, a low moan and little else, before it literally begins a percussive attack, a gallop, if you will, about two minutes in. Consider this one a mild haunting.
Thomas Brinkmann: The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
From the Lucky Hands album, which was more a study in minimalism than anything else. This was by far the standout track, featuring Brinkmann’s labelmate Tusia Beridze, aka TBA, slowly sultrifying (it’s a word) Moz’s now-classic lyrics and somehow making the whole song a lot sadder and a lot sexier.
Bless Brinkmann for pushing the palette back to dark. Check him out at Boomkat.
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