Artist: Automat
Title: Automat
Genre: Electronic / Experimental
Release Date: 8th April 2014
Label: Bureau B
Album Review
Quite experimental music project AUTOMAT was founded in November 2011 in Berlin by three already well-known and talented musicians, whose original ideas have finally been implemented into the debut self-titled album. At the very beginning it becomes clear that ‘Automat’ is something really unusual and interesting. On one hand everything seems to be pretty simple: rather calm, quiet music, pleasant, harmonious tunes, but gradually one starts to notice even more sonic elements, notes and tinges so that the impression could be full. The album turned out to be unstrained and you may want to listen to it again and again. It’s definitely a solid, stylish and peculiar work, but I would also add the word “cinematographic”: each composition could be a good soundtrack for a film, live-action or documentary yet the concept of the album reveals the idea of a journey, simultaneously in space and time because some melodies transmit a bit retro atmosphere.
And it starts with ‘THF’, leisured, rather mild but at the same time slightly scary, of course, with its own inner energy that periodically bursts out and spills over into pulsating 'SXF’. This one is a tenser track with more distinct guitar and bass lines or maybe I’m just getting used to such music. Anyway the whole picture becomes vivid and colourful, I would say sunny somehow. But what else to expect from the journey that already leads listeners to ‘The Streets’ and these streets are definitely busy, so a voice appears and in this case the voice belongs to Lydia Lunch. Actually this half-whisper, half- recitative sounds very specific, uncommon and interesting, but tastes differ so let’s get down to the musical part which is rhythmic, dynamic, tuneful mostly sharing the common features with its predecessors.
Listening to ‘Mount Tamalpais’ it seems that you can feel the breath, pulse of that place: sonic minimalism combined with the voice of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge creates a total sense of naturalness. ‘TXL’ is bright, energetic and somewhat positive as it may seem at first, yet that scary slant from the opening piece also can be observed here. ‘Schlachtensee’ pleases with the voice of Blixa Bargeld that makes a nice contribution to the completeness of the composition which sounds really great smoothly passing into the final thing ‘GWW’ that carries a light shade of sadness that the music journey comes to an end yet the impressions after listening will remain for a long time. In general ‘Automat’ is an extremely good debut work that could also be described as intelligent. Mostly I’m not a fan of this kind of music but there must be always an exception, especially when everything is so well-done and rich so there’s nothing to add. And of course the album may interest all lovers of good high quality music and it’s worth listening at least with introductory purposes.
Tracklist
01. THF – 6:14
02. SXF – 7:32
03. The Streets (feat. Lydia Lunch) – 6:08
04. Mount Tamalpais (feat. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge) – 3:27
05. TXL – 6:25
06. Schlachtensee (feat. Blixa Bargeld) – 5:49
07. GWW – 7:17
Line-up
Jochen Arbeit
Achim Färber
Georg Zeitblom
Website
http://www.automatmusik.de / https://www.facebook.com/automatberlin
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 9
Sound: 9
Total: 9 / 10
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