Label: Staubgold Format: CD
What better subject for a To Rococo Rot concept album than a highly modernist building in Cologne? With twelve modular rooms to work represent both the structure and purpose of, the logical method the band took was to compose a three minute track for each section. What emerges is a stripped-down album which works within the structural constraints to deliciously minimal effect, whether on the cyclical guitar figures of Track 3 or in pulsing barebones Electro rhythms elsewhere.
Kölner Brett is a gem of an album, where warm flows of deft Funk click and cut over to a meandering groove of post-post-Rock with all the smooth musical engineering processes which have come to characterise the melodic side of German electronica, and more specifically To Rococo Rot. Their dub influences infect everything with a subtle hypnotic swell, as found swimming around Track 4 and 5′s gently-warbling liquid and glass samples: it’s difficult not to imagine this as being music for parties where black polonecks are de rigeuer. Equally, the architectural motifs infect every moment, gliding in an acoustic walkthrough of the project on gimbals as gyroscope-steady as virtual reality can provide. Elsewhere, smooth and/or chunky Techno propels itself into the mix with a tick and a skip, effortlessly bringing back those Autobahn comparisons as the music sweeps majestically along the fine driveway which links technical precision with warm human-level immersion. If this is what living or working at Kölner Brett sounds and feels like, it’s time to get a lease reservation in.
-Antron S. Meister-
