Spacerokkmountainrutschquartier

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Jo Zimmermann obviously appreciates a good concatenation. On the simplest level, his tongue-twisting titles chain words together in such painful-sounding multisyllabic tooth-chippers as "Kartoffelackerdiscoesotech" (on his Burgfensterrhymuskuckloch LP), this album's "Bienenkopfkorbgeflecht," "discoboingbeach," and "mausefaltenfripp," and the friendlybarracudagoodmelodysongs of his last A-Musik outing, the Freundlichbarracudamelodieleidgut LP. But beyond this talent for top-heavy neologisms - all of which are guaranteed never to find their way into common usage - Zimmermann seems to generate his music through the polymerization of very simple melodic and rhythmic units. At the root of each piece are a few elementary synth motifs and motorik modules. From these processed and repeated ideas, a "Mausefaltenfripp" or "Discoboingbeach" commences its caterpillar-like crawl. This generative approach instantly recalls the tautological prototypes of Schlammpeitziger's predecessors, Neu! and Kraftwerk. But Zimmermann relies upon naively chromatic synthetic timbres which make his music even more suggestive of the later Cluster-with-a-"C" pop twiddlings of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Their dreamy proto-electronica didn't always navigate the fine line between the mesmerizing and the monotonous or the vivid and the vacuous with startling acuity. Schlammpeitziger falls victim to a similar fate. Spacerokkmountainrutschquartier inches along naively, like a diluted take on Raymond Scott's seminal Soothing Sounds for Baby or an enervated Mouse on Mars drained of Jan and Andi's rhythmic vigor and textural brilliance, with only a few tracks managing to leave lingering impressions. Those which stick do so by virtue of memorably convoluted constructions ("Hirnrindentritt" and the vaguely "Hallogallo"-esque title track or by means of hummable melodic barbs ("Honkytonk Schlickummpittz," "Salz und Brote auf Lanzarote.") The others enter one ear and exit through its twin soonafter, marking time in pleasant enough fashion but failing to register strongly alongside the more substantive and cerebral sounds of labelmates Markus Schmickler and FX Randomiz.