Speculation [CD]

If the words "German electronica" conjure images of austere-looking men standing motionless behind synths in mono-coloured suits, or the "nihilist" baddies in The Big Lebowski, To Rococo Rot might help you abandon the stereotype. Stefan Schneider and brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok are a Berlin-based electronica and post-rock trio who have been blending digital and acoustic elements for almost 15 years. `Speculation', their sixth full-length, is their warmest, most human album yet. Made in a secluded rural area of southern Germany with a simple studio set-up that enabled recording "like a band playing a live show", the bucolic surroundings and more freeform dynamic are evident in the results.

The band's MySpace featues some interesting notes: "A record that celebrates uncertainty" may be a bit strong claim for an album which pleasures rather than challenges the ear, but I can see what they mean. The tracks are largely brief, and are cyclic rather than linear - simmering instead of evolving, "in a midpoint between propulsion and letting go". They often fizzle out much the way they began, fittingly for band whose moniker is itself a palindrome (i.e., its reads the same forwards as backwards).

Some tracks - like the understated opener 'Away', with its rumbling post-punk bass loop augmented by jazzy flutters of high end guitar - have an air of live improvisation about them. There is a delicate hesitancy to this live instrumentation which makes a nice counterpoint to the metronomic insistence of the beats. The jazziness deepens with the looser percussion of `Seele', punctuated by deep piano chords and lush atmospherics, and `Horses' which ripples under the auspices of some teasingly funky bass. The latter bleeds nicely into the sunlit chimes of `Forwardness', which certainly wouldn't have sounded out of place on Four Tet's latest.

Elsewhere, there is a hint of Andrew Wetherall (Two Lone Swordsmen or even Sabres of Paradise) on the cinematic `Place It', while there's a hint of motorik - naturally - on the funkier climbs of 'Working Against Time'. While sonically experimental, `Speculation' is not willfully cerebral or esoteric like the - now admittedly less fashionable - glitch end of IDM. Don't be intimidated by the German electronica tag, this is immediate stuff - few tracks outstay their welcome except for the cavernous ambient of closer `Friday', which perculates in the background for 11-odd minutes. `Speculation' might please fans of more expansive but easy-on-the-ear recent albums by Field and Four Tet, but it may not reward the deeper listening encouraged by those albums. First published at The Line of Best Fit.

To Rococo Rot are Stephan Schneider who plays bass and brothers
Robert and Ronald Lippok who play guitar and electronics and drums
and all manner of effects respectively. They come from Berlin and as
befits that great city's noble legacy of fine electronic music their own
contribution is a not insignificant one. They have been sending signals
out into the listening world since their eponymous debut in 1996.

Highlights along the way have included their 2001 release 'Kolner Brett',
a jolly little collection of a dozen pieces ('Kolner Brett 1' - 'Kolner Brett 12')
each of which revolves around a simple germinal idea which is then
stretched inside-out and outside-in to drain every last drop of compositional
possibility from its entrails and the rather splendid 'Hotel Morgen' (2004)
which, in comparison, stretches its wings and soars with a dazzling array
of multi-faceted and multi-textured musical and rhythmic ideas. It is a
veritable treasure chest of richly exotic invention.

Their most recent album 'Speculation' is more than worthy of our attention too.
There are ten pieces to consider and although there are no great surprises or
significant changes of direction in stylistic content there is still much to enjoy.

Some of the arrangements seem to have arisen from a need to strip things
down and simplify their technological tool kit and lofty aesthetic paradigm.
Opening track 'Away', for example, is essentially a jam constructed around
a rock-solid bass-line thrown into the mix by Mr Schneider. Additional
guitar, percussion and twitchy technically generated elements reminded me
of the kind of sounds which seeped out of a thousand and one garages, attics
and basement rooms in the incense-scented early seventies!

The big echoing introductory keyboard statement of 'Seele' (soul) paves the way
for another partly improvisatory work-out built around an athlectically limber
bubbling bass motif and a nicely shuffling, cymbal-filled, back-beat. Waves
of temple bell-like glissandi lend the proceedings an almost spiritual ambience.

Other highlights include : the curiously funky 'Working Against Time', shot through
with what sounds like a small rodent playing a penny whistle. Everyone seems to be
kicking-back and having a nice time. After a couple of stiff vodka martinis in would
be entirely possible to dance along to this track with unselfconscious abandon!
'Bells' is another gloriously unfettered confection brimming over with incandescent
good-humour. The skittering rhythm and mercurial synth arabesques are delightful!
Final track 'Fridays' is an altogether darker affair. For almost eleven minutes this
extended meditation is the most uncompromising invention in the bunch.
Listening to it is rather like walking across a stark, grey, stone-strewn landscape
towards an uncertain far-distant horizon. An ambiguous, anxiety-filled, journey
which brings the project to an uncomfortably satisfying close, our footsteps
fading away into nothingness over the final hymn-like organ chords.

'Speculation' is an entirely apt title for this fine exercise in sonic excavation.
Although To Rococo Rot may be mining closer to the surface than in some of
their past work there is no evidence of diminution in their imaginative powers.

Recommended.