Floating di Morel – ulf / fdm

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Floating di Morel - ULFFormed in 1994 by ex PLO and Young Scamps members Kai Drewitz and Sabine Blödorn, Floating Di Morel have been mixing it up on the Berlin underground circuit for some time now. This, their latest album is my very first taste and I’ve got to say I’m really partial to what they have to offer.

Their minimal aesthetic is ticking my new wave sensibilities, that sense of the ironic they stoically mine with subverted preset verve. A clever reduction that Casanovas this jaded combo of male and female vocals, a jivering focus replete with sparky acoustic mid-fills from Thorsten Neu. Lead vocalist Drewitz plies these lovely intoxicated arrows like a methadone-shadowed Kurt Ralske sinking a chilled martini. Swinging on the right side of kitsch, “Pantomine Dog” is a spindled-percussive, hollow-hearted joy too, with this Slapp Happy /Nico-esque peppering of female vox walking an 8-bit Spanish in slippery echoes.

You can’t escape that sense of fun running throughout, a tongue in cheek artiness to the bassy pluck and cornet flashes of “White Nights On The Moon” woo(ing) you in a pleasing jigsaw of muted machinings. A tune that bobs in hip-shaking shimmers and Warhol wiggery, like a silky Neu! cravat. The mood has been consistently light’n’airy up to now, but then you flip to the other side and things navigate to altogether darker territories.

The Club de Rome sleaziness of “Instability” is a complete gem, a dark wave pleasure as Sabine’s voice weavers the recoiling zither, hooks you in with a panther-like nonchalance. “Lost” follows, churns things up in TG-like tubey metallics to more Sabine detachments detailing “an acoustic curling” as this low-slung, gong-like bruise ripples around, encourages your ears to dig deeper. Leaving the dirge-like pucker of “Frost” to synapse chew some nice synthesized sub-currents and mottled mathematics, Drewitz elegantly prowling the ziss and serpentine sliver to its deady-dead-eyed finish.

A delight that has me intrigued to what else I’ve been missing out on.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-

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