Number 5 of 2006 — Ellen Allien & Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles

German musician and DJ Ellen Allien, founder of Berlin’s BPitch Control, makes dancefloor techno, whereas Sascha Ring (aka Apparat) appears to be more interested in sound. German techno – truly the sound of machines – shouldn’t work with the brainiac tones and rhythms of intelligent dance music. This collaborative album succeeds by granting these disciplines their own spaces which enables them to collide gracefully. The title, Orchestra of Bubbles, is apt.

Turbo Dreams gives listeners no chance to become accustomed to this joint venture. This opening track rushes in, creating signature techniques to be picked up elsewhere: multilayered syncopated and glitchy percussion, delays and warm analog synths. There’s an inherent tension which just about keeps everything in order.

This album isn’t simply about technique. The obvious attention to detail creates a structure which ironically gives more opportunities to break rules. There are three elements which take this further than one might expect, forcing the exposure of subtle emotions.

Way Out begins with the most striking of these: the introduction of Ellen’s voice. Processed so as to give it more air, she carries the main melody of the track. The lyrics sparse and fragmented. A piercing steamy synth cuts through in a unsuccessful attempt to drag the track back to the production line. We then hear the second element: real strings. Two clear signs that this album is intentionally soulful – binding traditional song elements to the mechanistic properties of techno which detractors consider unfeeling. Thereafter, Way Out simply soars. The following track, Retina is a harsh come-down, taking the strings darker: using looped cello stabs and throbbing beats to disorientate the listener.

Ellen also sings sparingly on the tangy Sleepless, propelled by crunching beats, and she whispers through Bubbles, the melancholic closer which is all filters, delays and loops. The highlight of the album however is Do Not Break, which throws vocal snatches and hip-hop scratches into something approaching a sibling of Turbo Dreams, except with more beats and a gorgeous crest that combines these vocals with keys and a rich pad sequence.

The latter tracks of Orchestra of Bubbles introduce the third element, being surprisingly bass heavy: Metric lightens Retina’s strings but then pops them on top of quivvering dubstep. Under clatters through empty lift shafts chased by an ominous sub-bass. Apparat turns up to croon on Leave Me Alone, but this ends up sounding like a hungover Röyksopp.

The overall impression of this album is of beats trapped inside almost infinite reflections. Penultimate track Edison makes this explicit and experimental with dissolved cascades of falling ping-pong balls that back elegiac padded keys and a plucked zither.

You could argue that with Orchestra of Bubbles, Ellen Allien and Apparat are reconstructing techno, with a plan to take it into the realm of song. This album is a worthy attempt. However there was one other album released in 2006, which did this much better. That album is further up my list.

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Number 6 of 2006 — Lunik: Preparing to Leave

Here’s a secret: when I started putting together my list of top albums from 2006, this album wasn’t even in the longlist (how very Booker of me), never mind the shortlist. But that’s part of the reason why it takes me such a long time to get these reviews on-line: I spend a lot of time with each album on the lists, plus others that I feel need to be re-evaluated. This also means that albums can get kicked out of the shortlist (which is very un-Booker).

Preparing to Leave is Lunik’s fifth album, recorded in three days in a castle near Toulouse. Released in 2006, it’s also their best album, because it lives up to the promises held within its predecessors, building on the accomplishments of 2004’s live album Life is on Our Side. But, unexpectedly, it’s not a happy album. Perhaps that’s why I like it: whilst I’m a fan of sincere positivity, I’m never happier than when I’m wallowing in a depressing album because it prods at my own contradictions.

Opening track Life is all Around goes some way to exhuming and rejecting all of the doubts and dark places one holds within, but thereafter, the songs wreak of isolation, abandonment, separation and rejection. During much of the album, it is unclear whether this song is the conclusion or a false hope. Certainly, you can enjoy the album merely by skimming the surface and being driven away by its frequent musical exuberance, but once you start listening to the lyrics you’ll find that the music is there to act as a contrast. To this is added Jaël’s sweet voice, which only bursts once, on the final track, to drain the pain she feels.

Little Bit continues the paradox: using Lunik’s trademark of combining electric guitars with acoustic, developing a song with incredible bounce that ultimately expresses the confusion and indifference within an adulterous relationship. The repeated “little bit I love you, little bit I hate you” highlights not only this but also an ultimate lack of control. This latter theme is emphasised throughout the album so much that it becomes terrifying. For example, the ending of a relationship dominates the subtle, listenable The Rest is Silence, but it’s the lyric “you just went away” which will haunt.

The title track provides an opportunity for Jaël softest vocals. It’s possibly the best song Lunik has written. The arrival of pads, strings and chorused backing vocals build an emotional anthem, through which you’ll discover why this song was picked for the album title. The dichotomy between isolation and companionship, the yearning for both, and the circumstances that cause them, recur throughout this album. Of these alternatives, it’s apparent that companionship is the most difficult to achieve and be satisfied with. Bad Timing illustrates this perfectly. Colder and more introspective than its predecessors, Jaël decides that she’s “gotta be alone now” because she failed in this relationship, although it could merely be her own doubt that’s ruined it. Care sees Jaël pleading to herself to save a relationship – and there’s a crucial intake of breath during this song which is wonderous.

Sometimes, however, it’s other people. Fall, dark and pulsing, documents another break-up, referencing “destiny” and “chance” – again illustrating powerlessness. Throughout all of this recurring suffering The Game shows that Jaël remains a romantic idealistic, irreconcilable to the realities of life, despite acknowledging that “everybody hurts and everybody heals” – referring back to the opening song.

If there is one song that aches magnificently, it’s Constant Tourist. Showcasing Lunik’s extraordinary writing skills, it uses the juxtaposition of a delightful tune (the break is magnificent) and some desperate lyrics: “the wound doesn’t bleed anymore but now the scar hurts”.

The final two songs, Last Night and Let Go do go some way to reaching a resolution. Last Night is the delicate opening act: ruminations on a dream during which Jaël rescues a dying bird and saves its life. This is the moment when she starts to realise that she has choices and opportunities that need to be taken. Being continually subservient to others hasn’t helped, so it’s time to “fly away alone”. This goal is reached in Let Go. A dramatic piano led anthem, recalling Emily Haines at her most reflective, it reconciles Jaël emotions through the fiercest vocal performance on the album. The finale, with its repeated “gotta let you go”, cries to her partner(s) and to her demons – the only time that Jaël’s voice breaks – and the exorcism is palpable.

It’s then you realise that Preparing to Leave is all about the breaking point of relationships. There are always two choices. But the songs on this album always choose separation.

Preparing to Leave – iTunes Plus UK
Preparing to Leave – iTunes UK
Lunik – Official Website
Jaëlonline

It’s all you need. Three songs from a live set that Emily Haines performed for Belgium’s Radio Libre:

The first song is Doctor Blind. You may need to click the little >| next track icon to get to the other two tracks, or they may load up on their own: The Lottery and Crowd Surf Off A Cliff.

Emily Haines’ new EP What Is Free to a Good Home? featuring five new songs from the Knives Don’t Have Your Back sessions, plus a remix of Mostly Waving is out on iTunes Canada now and released in Canada in real life on 22 July.