Modeselektor - "Happy Birthday!"

Modeselektor - 2000007 (feat. TTC) (Bpitch Control 2007)

Modeselektor - Happy Birthday! / Bpitch Control

By crook or by diff, last week was a bevy of hip-hop releases. It was only partly intentional, but the quality was all there. Germany's Modeselektor could've been propped up right with them, but they are a different animal. Working from our beloved Bpitch Control offices in Berlin, using big-beat electronic anthems more akin to Justice than Jay Dee, utilizing the vocal talents of Thom Yorke and a questionable collaboration with Maxïmo Park, Modeselektor continue to choose the road less traveled of audiversity, if you know what I mean.

In short, they go beyond mere categorization, and though that's a trite thing to say (I shuddered typing that out just now, in fact), Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary are on a trajectory that will take them beyond mere "electro" or "party-hop" MySpace tags. And anyway, the title of their two albums have been Hello Mom! and Happy Birthday! Only The Saturday Knights take themselves less seriously.

The history of the duo dates back to 1992 when Bronsert met acid house DJ Szary in Berlin. After coming together under the Fundamental Knowledge alias, they rechristened themselves as Modeselektor in 1996 and one chance meeting with Bpitch head Ellen Allien later, the boys were on the label at the turn of the millennium. It's been all uphill since: Several collaborations and remixes have furthered the Modeselektor name in between 2000 and 2005, but Hello Mom! was a wake-up call to those who weren't already on top of the electro game. One advocate in particular helped them garner enough attention to get a US release for Happy Birthday!, and he's on here. That'd be Thom Yorke.

But that'd be jumping the gun, because Thom doesn't make an appearance until penultimate tune "The White Flash." There's so much more happening on this record that reducing it to mere guest appearances (which also include TTC, Siriusmo, Puppetmastaz, Apparat, Paul St. Hillaire, and Otto von Schirach) would be foolish. Bronsert and Szary are doing plenty with the production of this record, and that's one of its many joys: If it doesn't sound like the perfect Franco-crunk of TTC's appearance on "2000007," it's the dark n' stark minimalism on "B.M.I." expected from a Berlin-based bunch of electronics-savvy personnel (We could've picked any song from this record to get the point across that they are working their stylistic palettes, but the TTC track just seems to have this extra bit of zest in their demented delivery that is hard to turn down). If it's not "Nova"-style flowers-blooming-at-speed on "The First Rebirth" (Just picture the voice-over as a woman describes how "In a few short weeks, this rhododendron has become a part of the landscape... Forever..."), it's the thoughtful IDM of "Edgar," which shares a lot in common with French brethren Tepr. I've always mentally associated these three but while Tepr is more boisterous more often, Modeselektor show an air of restraint when they're not throwing down wicked glitch-hop for the kids to flip out about.

There's a pleasant stretch of five songs in the first third of the album that are free of guests, and these songs, from "B.M.I." to "The Dark Side of the Frog" are both emotionally and sonically coherent. This reveals a definite mood that Modeselektor fall into when they're left to their own devices; just have a peek at "Late Check-Out" deep into the album to understand. Even when it's Kavinsky-esque Testarossa autodriving on "Sucker Pin," it's never overtly flamboyant or boisterous as it seems to be when there are others hanging about the studio. Take for example IDM terrorist Otto von Schirach's appearance on "Hyper Hyper:" The twisted voices bring out the dark side of the song. It's an interesting dynamic and one which Modeselektor have not always employed; I seem to remember Hello Mom! being a little more excitable a little more often.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. The two sides to Modeselektor balance themselves out quite nicely here. "The White Flash" is a tantalizing taste of what The Eraser should've sounded like had the songs been, you know, tolerable in length; hopefully Yorke will have taken a few clues from his friends here and the next Radiohead album (due whenever they feel like it!) will follow suit. "I Can't Sleep (Without Music)" is a bit boring but you never see it coming on the CD so as an addendum it's somewhat of a last-gasp kicker.

Not that Happy Birthday! needs one. See, the great thing here is that Modeselektor are peaking at a time when people are open to rockist electronica, so Modeselektor are in the right place at the right time, even more so than they were two years ago. If this is the summer of Simian Mobile Disco and New Young Pony Club and on and on it goes, then Modeselektor deserve to rope in their own contingent of followers and, as they've done so often in the past, bend their brains on the next release (which I predict will be called For the Graduate! if the last two album titles are anything to go by). It's what being brilliant is all about, and though we toss that description around a lot here at Audiversity, Modeselektor are truly deserving.