Silur

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Silur is pretty representative of the output of Berlin's Kitty-Yo, whose sampler CD earlier this year featured the fine Go Plus and (label founders) Surrogat alongside Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok's Tarwater. Focussing on Kitty-Yo's patronage of the burgeoning German avant-garde post-rock and electronica scenes, the compilation's stand-out track was Tarwater's 'The Watersample', and this is the finest track on this album too. Certainly one of the year's most beautiful pieces of smart pop music, built on a looping, plaintive string sample amid a skilfully crafted arrangement of guitars and found sounds, and adorned with drummer/vocalist/DJ Ronald Lippok's carefully minimalist narration, it reminds one of Marcus Schmickler's Pluramon, yet has a mannered originality of its own. And it's characteristic of the Tarwater sound, employing loops, samples, and considerable studio work, though their prominent use of guitars and vocals places them squarely in a post-rock vein rather than electronica. Moreover, these are most definitely 'songs', and so Tricky is a reference as much as Tortoise - at times, a more considered, less theatrical version of The The's "Mind Bomb" even came to mind. A talent for production is evident throughout, and there are several moments in which the choice, recording, and rendering of sound pricks your ears: the skittering electric squawks of 'To Moauf' and striking scraped guitar strings of 'Otomo' for instance. Tarwater embody the serious, (brown?) suit-wearing side of post-rock, as opposed to the shabby Carhartt workwear of, say, the Chicago set; their languid mid-tempo grooves and reserved monotone observations are clearly in a continental tradition of sorts. 'Seafrance Cezanne' employs a female narrator, whose precise, passionless tones recall Paul Schütze's Second Site, though telling a story rather than telling a space, yet 'V-at' is charmingly quirky phased synth-pop. Despite the sense of drifting melancholy, a motion contributor at their recent London gig reports that they can cut it live too. A beguiling album.