For his debut album as Recondite, producer Lorenz Brunner revisited his childhood home of Lower Bavaria, Germany’s thickly-forested, highly conservative southernmost. The muted tones of Hinterland, from the black and white photography and typesetting of its cover to its musical core, is intended to portray the ”emotions of the four seasons” and ”the area’s mentality [and] characteristics of people’s minds.”
This is staid, reserved electronica, as if the denizens of the region were men and women of few words and their weather really variable only in small degrees. Even when peppier, as on “Riant,” the mood of Hinterland is hushed, late, monochrome autumn after the leaves. Its beats gently pet the eardrum. Its serene demeanor echoes nostalgia of form, too, ringing back to seventies simplicity, though filtered and seamlessly reconciled with Berlin’s sleekest techno minimalism.
Hinterland is available on Ghostly International.
