evey leonard
This recording always haunts me. Especially at the end. There is a moment when it sounds like a microphone is being switched off - like the track was recorded in the wild, in nature. I create a different story every time I hear it.
Favorite track: The Mark (Interlude).
montscottish
Why do I love this album? Oh, where do I start?! It's packed with brilliant, soulful songs married with amazing backing tracks that are beautiful soundscapes and earworms which stand on their own merits. But when you blend Sascha's great voice and melodies with the production from him, Gernot and Szary, then they're in a league of their own. Perfect electronic pop.
Favorite track: Damage Done.
Is this music? Or is it a force of nature? Modeselektor’s bass lines split the earth in two, and crazy trumpets announce that the end is nigh. Just when you think that you have fallen victim to this electronic madness, the clouds clear and Apparat’s voice – graceful and very beautiful – comes down from on high. In Moderat’s world, full-on party and profoundness are no contradiction. When Modeselektor and Apparat meet again on their second album, we come full circle.
Moderat are Apparat (Sascha Ring) and Modeselektor (Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary), On the one side, the thoughtful sound tinkerer and pop poet, and on the other the techno b-boys. Both acts represent the Berlin electronic scene from the other side of the straight bass drum. Modeselektor are grand masters of subterranean bass and electrifying breakbeats. Apparat is the purveyor of sophisticated electronic pop music. The refusal to be satisfied with what is available forms the bond of an artistic friendship that has lasted more then a decade. The fact that their individual projects are so absorbing precluded the possibility of a continuous collaboration. As a result, in all this time the trio has come together merely three times – but in decisive phases of their careers. The first time was at the beginning of 2003. The legendary sessions resulted in the ‘Auf Kosten der Gesundheit EP’. In the years following, both acts garnered international popularity. With their groundbreaking albums, they defined the electronic sound of the time. In 2008 they returned to the studio. On their first album, they defined the Moderat sound. Throbbing bass and tricky beats on the one hand, Apparat’s delicate vocals on the other. It was this extreme contrast that created the unique Moderat vibe.
Five years have passed and all three find themselves in a new situation: they assume new responsibilities as bandleader (Apparat) and as label makers and dads (Modeselektor). The spectrum is an emotional one, and one that has increased stylistically. There is no longer a prevailing tone. In the space of eleven tracks, Moderat presents a very varied but nonetheless compact and epic tale.
With its flickering electronic soundscape, The Mark (Interlude) gets things brewing nicely for Bad Kingdom. Bad Kingdom is perhaps the most universal song that Apparat and Modeselektor have ever produced: a pop song full of passion and energy, lacking contradiction and speaking a universal language. With Versions, they reduce the pressure and introduce us to the poetry of electronic sounds. Let in the Light is another great pop song, but on another level. The forces of nature are at rest. It is detached conversation about great emotions, with a whisky in hand, in the light of an open fireplace. Once again Apparat outdoes himself. However, this does not deter our trio from landing somewhere completely different in the next track. With its shuffling breakbeats and flickering washes of sound, Milk is a clandestine hip hop track, humbly representing on its street corner; our trio nods their heads, but only until they pull out a bass-driven steamroller that hammers down a remorseless, rocking funk onto the Berlin cobblestones.
With Therapy, the trio once again shows a completely new side: here are the ultra-emotional ravers, standing in a stroboscope storm, with sweat and tears running down their necks and torsos. In the next track, everything revolves around Apparat’s voice and the personal encounter with Gita. Clouded (Interlude), allows a pause to draw breath. For a moment, they completely fall back into electronic sounds. With Ilona, a second lady comes into play, but Apparat does not quite look her in the eye. Instead, a tribal-sounding choir addresses her. Damage Done is the album’s climax – a moment where one’s guard is absolutely lowered. It is the finale when the cigarette lighters sparkle in the night sky. By This Time it is all over. The safety bars have popped open and slightly dazed, you step down from the rollercoaster, and exhausted and elated, you look back at the adventure that you have just experienced.
Moderat are seducers and hooligans, ponderers and party monsters. They leave no page unturned in their electronic and analogue lives. In the clash of their musical personalities, they show us new facets of their characters. This reunion has brought about one of electronic pop music’s greatest albums.
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