Modeselektor - Monkeytown reviews
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| Guardian |
 For much of the past decade, Modeselektor have functioned as the jokers in the austere Berlin techno pack, their IDM-to-crunk genre-hopping playfulness a useful counterpoint to the serious minimalism that surrounded them. This scattershot eclecticism sits a little more easily in 2011 – as does the latest sound they appropriate, the woozy synths and slowed tempos of the UK bass scene. Despite their titles, Berlin and German Clap could both have conceivably come out of London; Miss Platnum's charismatic vocals enliven the former, but the latter is a flat Night Slugs imitation. Elsewhere, the frantic acid rush of Evil Twin is more successful than Modeselektor's excursions into hip-hop (never, to be honest, their strong point). Of the variable decisions on Monkeytown, though, the worst is the employment of Radiohead's Thom Yorke on two tracks – something of a recent trend in dance music – his voice serving as the ultimate buzzkill to deaden any enjoyment of the party....full text |
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| Guardian |
| Although they hail from Berlin's dance scene, Modeselektor are far from a typically Teutonic techno outfit. They can do hard'n'fast perfectly well, as tracks such as "Evil Twin" attest. But this duo's assured, accessible third album builds upon their reputation as omnivorous digital stylists. "Shipwreck" finds Modeselektor super-fan Thom Yorke intoning against a relentless, effusive rhythm, while elsewhere US rappers spit over rubbery bass pulses. "Berlin" (featuring Miss Platnum), meanwhile, is a terrifically deconstructed R&B track. In between is a gleaming array of category-shrugging electronic offerings that, in their eclecticism and guest-laden spirit, recall a darker, harder Basement Jaxx or maybe even those other simians, Gorillaz....full text |
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| Pitchfork |
With their last couple of albums, Modeselektor have proved themselves artists with a range of far-flung good ideas that just can't seem to coalesce into one big concept. But if the Berlin duo has never been entirely easy to categorize-- hip-hop with techno sensibilities or vice-versa, with recent forays into all-purpose et cetera-step (Modeselektion Vol. 01)-- it helps quite a bit that they've never been self-serious purists. As it happens, their new album, Monkeytown, should benefit from the fact that there's still a boom market for nebulously connected circles of "bass music." Listening selectively, it's pretty easy to hear Modeselektor picking up on some post-Flying Lotus signifiers.
Opener "Blue Clouds" seeps out like a slightly more placid take on Cosmogramma highlight "...And the World Laughs With You", swapping out its frantic, future-junglist breaks for a less-cluttered rhythm and letting the synths simmer instead of boil. Busdriver feature "Pretentious Friends" rides off a buzzing throb that fits the MC's wiseass art-rap credentials well, though the most interesting sonic tweaks-- and maybe the most disorienting ones-- are all the hitches and hiccups and pitch-warps that they embed into his voice, like a mangled stretch of magnetic tape that can't quite find the right tracking. "Humanized" is a nauseatingly wobbly Anti-Pop Consortium team-up teeming with winking, retro-space-age analog noise.
And the highest-profile cosign comes in the form of Thom Yorke; "Shipwreck" and "This" highlight his ability to sound more emotionally compelling the more his voice is dissected. The former track's ramped-up, nervous-twitch ambience and the latter's massive yet isolated empty-arena echo both loop snatches of half-formed words and phrases into hypnotic swells that are bobbed and tossed by roiling, skittering rhythms-- it's heady stuff, easy to sink into....full text |
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