Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Record Review: Justus Koehncke's "Parage:" Did Somebody Say Neue Disco?

Wandering around Valencia Street this evening I poked my head into Aquarius Records and picked up a a couple new 12s", including Feuerland by Justus Koehncke. The title track is actually a re-working of a track by Michael Rother of the krautrock band Neu!, and it's a pretty moody bit of, well, krautrock, but thinned out and sharpened up a bit by modern production techniques, with a more distinct beat and a nice bit of high-hat shuffle toward the end. The B-side, though, is Parage (think "Paradise Garage") by Koehncke. If I could point out any one track that I've heard in recent months that epitomizes neue disco, it's this. It's got those latin beats and conga sounds, a classic walking bass line, it's even got strings, but there's a fair amount of synthesizer atmosphere laid in as well, so you could imagine this tucked up nicely against a classic disco b-side but definitely showing that it's of a newer vintage. It's also bright and clean, with a fresh burble to the keyboards and a shine on the highs that you could never capture with 70s recording technology and production. It's so good I'm wondering when I can play it out, so for all you old-school disco heads, this is definitely something you should check out.

Check out Koehncke's video for Feuerland on Youtube:

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