Music Reviews

Berlin Insane IV by Various (Pale Records)
Independent Berlin label, Pale Records, has for the past four years been collecting the latest and loudest musical cries from within the city’s underground, and packaging it in shape of a series of double compilation CDs.
As you’d expect from any Berlin-based label worth its salt, this is an electro-dominated venture, with the occasional guitar-led rock’n’roll and punk track thrown in. Berlin-dwelling artists such as Peaches, T. Raumschmiere and N.U. Unruh of Einstuerzende Neubauten fame, have all been allocated deserving spaces on this year’s edition.
True to form the annual events thrown to unveil a Pale Records’ compilation release, occur at uber-cool Berlin venues of past and present: scene-setting spaces such as White Trash and the Big Eden, as well as the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz have all played one-time host — showing off fashion, performances and exhibitions on the night. Curiously, Berlin Insane IV also features UK and US originated musical endeavours such as The Cazals, Pink Grease and Mount Sims, as well as internationally renowned DJ Mark Moore, late of S’ Express.
Amongst the total of thirty-eight songs, the compilation unsurprisingly has its share of weaker tracks, but for the most part proves to be an ear-catching experience.
Heike Schneider-Matzigkeit

Disco Students: I Beg to Differ (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Records)
The Disco students were formed in Aylesbury in 1978, and despite gaining airplay on the John Peel show, their single releases were sadly neglected and the band finally split up 1982. Now recently reformed, I Beg to Differ serves as an overview of the bands career both past and present, over the course of two discs. And it’s a gem, which ranges in scope from scratchy, edgy arty, lo-fi punk/ new wave, vaguely in the style of The Cure or Wire through to fragile early-Eighties pop stylings and experimental later recordings such as “Mark What’s the Score” which samples Mark E Smith reading the football results against a squelchy synth background. And with songs such as “Tina Weymouth’s Smile” and “King of the Manchester Baggy Scene” these pop outsiders also provide a witty and wry commentary on recent pop history.
Ian Lowey

Trabant – ‘Emotional’ (Southern Fried)
Forgive us for we have sinned a musical sin, of which shall continue to be committed, for evermore. For a moment, the clique got to us, its rules left us ravaged and empty; we know not of what we have done. Signed to Fatboy Slim’s Southern Fried label, the rules dictate that by all accounts Trabant should be a molecularized slab of bloated sub 90’s big beat, complete with standardized variables of kung fu samples and breaks that belong on a petrol station funk compilation. In reality, ‘Emotional’ makes you think how much of a better place the world would have been if Mr Slim had concentrated on putting out, instead of making, records. Tripping the light entropic, Trabant incorporate and diffuse somewhat confusing measures of superficiality and contemplation. They posses a surprising ability to take the music you love and hate, and turn it into something even the most hardened of rule makers would think twice about. A light powdering of low slung sophisticated pop dusts throughout this album, with the odd mogul of soft rock balladry proving an easy obstacle to overcome. If you long to hear the sound of Tomita’s snowflakes dancing once more, then ‘Overture’ will satisfy your cravings from outside the usual retro irony. Whilst songs such as ‘Nasty Boy’, ‘I Love You, Why?’ and ‘Pump You Up’ see lead singer Raggi coming on like the bastard son of Prince and George Michael (yeah, you heard, and what) being poked with a sharp stick. An air of sovereignty seems to seep from Trabant’s every pore, whether it through their extravagance and excess or the unwillingness to acknowledge a time when that crown does start to slip, and parody consumes. What can be said is that they truly exist within the initial stages of monarchical ascendance. The signs are there for all to see.
Ben Webster