Mood Taeg – Exophora

Happy Robots

Mood Taeg - ExophoraThe trio who comprise Mood Taeg are the musical arm of a wider artistic collective that includes video and graffiti artists, DJs, photographers and painters. Over the course of the thirty-odd minutes contained on their debut LP Exophora, you feel an obvious love for all things motorik and German-influenced, but reflected in a modern and rather charmingly effervescent style that brims with repetitive joy.

Those light, insistent rhythms are speckled with keyboard sounds on the long-running opener “2 M.R” that keep the groove interesting and bring to mind a lighter Camera (not that Camera are particularly heavy). I find it fascinating how irresistible this sort of sound is, not just to those people playing it, but to the audience who can lock themselves in to this endless simplicity. This track itself does drift into a playful kind of doldrums, with effects and distant voices haunting the measured groove. The details are subtle, but somehow the groove keeps you hooked and it diversifies just enough to notice the evolution.

There are similarities to Cavern Of Anti-Matter in the desire to drag old synths and other equipment into the tewnty-first century. The beats are feather light and spacier on “Deictics”, with a kind of post-euphoric keyboard line and vocal samples that wouldn’t be out of place on a more outré Ibiza playlist, while “Corpora” is the most obvious nod to Kraftwerk, those shining keyboard sounds and a bubbling groove keeping things as simple as possible.

The almost rhumba rhythm of “Interrogative” mixes things up a little, but the shuffling lilt of closer “Moodblock” feels like the start of another chapter. Its lilting feel and drifty loops do feel more contemporary and give the idea that this album could be the beginning of a promising career for Mood Taeg. We look on with interest.

-Mr Olivetti-

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