chrispower

definitely among the more interesting releases of the year. It should be mentioned that Aguayo's multitracked voice provides the much of the instrumentation throughout.

especially Moskow Disko!

I'm glad some people have enjoyed reading these reviews; I've certainly enjoyed writing them. I'm glad, also, that you asked about my sources, @sonnypike. As well as an awful lot of internet trawlinbg and magazine reading over the years, I made much use of Pascal Bussy's Kraftwerk: Man, Machine & Music. It's not particularly insightful on the music adn the prose is pretty characterless (not helped by a rather clumsy translation from the French), but good on the history. Naturally there's a lot of supposition and guesswork as to motives and decisions, but Bussy spoke to Hutter, Schneider and Karl Bartos, as well as band associates such as Maxime Schmitt and Emil Schult. In his foreword he tells a great story about receiving a call from Schneider just after the book first came out. The first words he heard when he picked up the phone were "Le livre, c'est de la merde."

Sorry, @edgar_allan_poe! I know my neglect of the remastering itself has been an irritant. I can't hear any difference whatseover between this version and the 2003 original.

and it's an interesting one because as much as Joy Division enthused about that side of Kraftwerk's ouevre, New Order were heavily influenced by the more explicitly dance-oriented facets of The Man-Machine and Computer World when they came to record Power, Corruption and Lies in '82/'83.

in the next installment, more attention is paid to the remastering itself in the Man-Machine review. I must admit I can only detect extremely minimal changes in sound quality on The Mix and Tour de France - these were digitally produced to exacting standards at the time of their initial release. The compression sounds more likely, although for the most part @DJAlbertFreeman's fears are unfounded - there's minimal squashing going on (maybe a little bit on Computer World, but that's not until tomorrow!)

I did address the remastering in a general sense in the introduction to Kraftwerkweek which accompanies the Autobahn review, but that should really be reiterated in each individual review. My position on the remasters is that yes, they do in the main sound a little bit crisper, but not enough to justify buying the albums again if you've already got them. These albums *always* sounded great, and despite the band converting all their analogue tapes to digital in the mid-80s and now releasing these remastered versions, they were never really going to be made to sound all that much better.

I'd advise sitting down for today's double-header.

@bornin69. The remastering doesn't really add much; certainly not enough to shell out for records you already own. I did mention this in the introduction to Kraftwerkweek which nestles in the Autobahn review (http://drownedinsound.com/releases/14727/reviews/4138102), but your comment makes me think that I should of course mention the remastering in the body of each review.

you've got until tomorrow before Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine...

lovingly reproduced inside the slipcase, e.a.p. That's true of all these releases, in fact.

Excellent stuff!

that's aesthetically of a piece with his Planet Mu releases? Your argument's no doubt sincere but it seems a little muddled, @gargantic.

You can definitely see Burial's influence at play in Lustman's work, but saying something sounds a bit like Burial and leaving it at that is becoming the lazy critical judgment of the year ('en trend' iconoclasm that requires zero original thought). For one thing it ignores much of FaltyDL's output. What's Burial-like about Human Meadow?

As for bloodlessness, I admit I didn't get the charge when I read it in The Wire and I don't get it now. I find tracks like 'Bravery', 'Must Sustain' and 'Play Child' on the forthcoming mini-LP richly evocative, and his work as a whole appeals so much to me because it has an emotional as well as technical impact.

You're right about the d&b but you're eliding important elements of the story. Don't forget it was none less than Boxcutter who suggested that Lustman's style might profit from slowing his productions down to 'garage' speed (an instruction which, as he's refreshingly honest about admitting, he didn't understand at the time), rather than it being a cynical decision to catch the ear of Mike Paradinas.

That's gold.

Have a great time, @Jimi. Look out for a review of the Terror Danjah set next time around. Killer!

smacked of a cursory listen to me. It certainly seemed cursorily thought out.

is stunning. It was meant to feature here but time didn't allow it - it'll be in AD013. Bravery's extraordinary, I think: at least half of it is a real step up from Love is..., which is one of my favourite albums of the year.

reminds me of a couple of old Rufige Cru and Renegade Hardware tunes. Might explore that next time around. Glad to hear you're both feeling Tummaa in the same way I am. Can't stop listening to it at the moment, and each time I like it more.

at the start of that press release quote?

I'll check out that Mayer mix and the dub war podcast. I look forward to reading Short Circuitry, too.

@jmi that Martin Kemp mix is on the download right now; loving sonic router's work, as always.

and I'm gutted I can't make it down to the gig tonight. That's all.

Fantastic record. Seriously pristine 80s-style production, too. The intro to the first track sounds like something off Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast.

...can't even spell incorrectly correctly.

is a total tune, even if it makes you look like you carn't spel. I really like Groove A 'K' Ordingly and the Simbad remix of It's What I Am, too.

I'll check that out. I agree with you on the stuff on the borders being the most interesting - there's some really fecund areas where those styles meet. I'm particularly interested in Funky. I know there's a certain perception that it's lost its way a bit, but with more dubstep producers trying out slower tempos I think there could well be a wave of good stuff about to hit. Maybe that's just wishful thinking based on my djing a lot of stuff around the 130 mark.

Both the Zomby and the Mount Kimbie are well worth a chunk of anyone's money. Look out for reviews of the new Jack Sparrow next time, too; I'm liking that a lot.

rather than just, y'know, giving the format short shrift?

not yet Jimi. Must get it - been meaning to since I first heard you recommending it. Remember me saying I didn't like Stillness is the Move? Well, that all turned around when I realised how sweetly it mixed out of the Pearson Sound a-side. Don't think the 12 year olds at Wireless gave a toss either way, but I was happy. Right: must get on to Silkie.

had it on repeat the last few days and it just gets better and better.

Haven't listened to it yet - think it would distract me too much from this copywriting assignment I've got. Looking forward to it. A lot.

by FaltyDL would be on there for mine. Jimi, get Fever Ray at once - it's an awesome album. I second your Martyn call but while I love the production on Stillness is the Move that vocal grates as badly as La Roux (or one half of La Roux). I thought the Moderat album was disappointing.

he told an entire concert hall about their song." That guy was sitting across the aisle from me and she, poor thunderstruck dear, was right next to him, curling herself into a tight ball of denial.

It's difficult to get across in the Q&A format but his incommunicativeness isn't surly, it's just...[shrugs]...it is what it is. There was a Pinteresque number of pregnant pauses in there, but if you let the silence be he'd often supplement his answers. Put it this way: I've rated the guy for 19 years and meeting him was in no way a disappointment. And anyway, as @thundervulture alludes to, put a guitar in the man's hands and he's eloquent as hell.

so thanks for the prompt. I like the gunshot analogy re: Roska, too. I think it's just the way it's said that sits uneasy with me. It almost sounds apologetic. That's probably just me, though.

The new Floating Points is sharp, @TheBoyDeadly - it'll be featured soon, for sure. Glad to hear you're enjoying A/C.

I assure you - and yes, @dis-integration, I'm loving LHC a *lot*. Planet Mu's on fire.

I remember quite enjoying some of La Love's new ones at that Bush Hall gig a while back, but the new album's absolutely atrocious.

on their reunion tour(s) I doubt they'd *ever* have to rehearse them again.

Looks like the hyperlink coding doesn't work the same way outside the articles. Apologies. That really does look bobbins.

and Purple City both make me feel a little bit sick when I've got them in decent headphones. I mean that as a compliment.

Thanks for the recommendation, @dis-integration. I'll get myself to Boomkat and check that EP out.

You're dead right about Archipel Musique, @Vian, and that Somfay album just demands getting lost in.

Looking forward to that mix @jimitheexploder. Your post reminds me that everyone who wants it can get hold of a free download of an excellent FaltyDL album track ('To New York') at Rcdlbl. Only you should go via [Sonic Router](http://sonicrouter.blogspot.com/2009/06/download-faltydl-to-new-york.html), because it's wicked.

totally with you on that. Thought I'd woken up back in the middle of the DJ Mag 'faceless techno bollocks' era for a minute.

rather than just a number.

3rd that

Awesome work, Wendy.

and this album really unlocks itself, it's true. (Thank you, tedious copywriting project, for helping me to discover that.) Can't agree with you on the lack of standouts, though: Two Weeks, Cheerleader, While You Wait For the Others...all tunes with a 'ch'.

Nah. Only joking.

I agree with you about funky, Jimi. I can't say I'm too concerned though, as from my angle I'm more interested in it's potential to feed back into house and liven things up a bit, rather than a brave new world into which the nuum can flow. Having said that I'd love more stuff of the quality of, say, Yellowtail, but I kind of think that with Cooly's Love Dub and Kode9's Black Sun there's something else going on anyway; a kind of interstitial sound is starting up that might or might not grow into something. It's interesting to watch, at any rate.

As for Moth/Wolf Cub, I really rate it. Particularly Moth. It just grows and grows on you. Havning listened to it a lot it now sounds like a totally different record to the one I got in the post a couple of weeks ago. Well worth that late night appointment you were talking about.

...my namesake is a self-publishing creationist sci-fi writer.

but I'm a big fan of Everything Ecstatic and a few of his remixes - Yorke's Atoms For Peace, Matthew Dear's Deserter. Best of the lot, though, is his mix of Jack White's Forever Is For Her (credited to 'Aluminum' rather than White). Stunning track.

I was a little bit disappointed by the Moderat album, which is why I never gave it a mention here. Had big hopes for it but it sounds a little flat to me. There's the odd good track - Porc#2 I like especially, but I don't get why every DJ of the minimal/techy persuasion is hammering that Booka Shade remix of Rusty Nails. No offence to Apparat but the vocals awful.

@joshjem, and well put. I agree with you about the open-mindedness in principle. I'd like to think that was the motivation behind this. Given the obvious lack of thought that's gone into the selection process, though, even if the original impulse *was* a worthy one it obviously got pretty rapidly sidetracked.