This is an album of 14 concise, insanely fun pop instrumentals. Admittedly Herr Hausmeister (Christian Przygodda) has assembled them electronically for the most part, with squelchy synths and fuzzy samples allowed to distort and warp whoozily as it happens. Rhythm sections pop and click, drum kit sounds on one track, electronic sounds on the next, and sound effects sweep by.
Nonetheless, these are great little pop songs, nothing more nothing less. The center track, “Nitten”, is simply layers of acoustic guitar, shifting deftly through a bunch of great melodic and harmonic changes, with Przygodda singing wordlessly along with the main melody. If this sounds like a touch on the easy listening side for your taste, when this kind of genuine song-writing is translated back into the electronic realm, what you get is much more like Mouse On Mars than a slow number off a Beach Boys record. But be warned – summery strumming and distant “nah nah nah” vocals do turn up on several other tracks.
The Hausmeister album is certainly a beautiful debut, but may be a touch too unassuming to get the attention I believe it deserves. It makes a great antidote to the often dour world of electronic minimalism, as well as to the clean synthesized arrangement of a lot of recent melodic electronic releases.
