Superpitcher
Here Comes Love
(Kompakt)
You can always count on Kompakt releases for a smooth and enveloping listening experience and Here Comes Love by Superpitcher is no exception. After releasing a slew of singles and remixes, Aksel Schaufler has dropped this 9 track, hourlong journey of kick-drummed sex songs.
Okay, so not every song is about sex, but they might as well be with his minimal but warm production and super-breathy vocals that appear on all but one track. "People" opens the album with an echoing bell sound and quickly builds a juicy bassline warble, a steady thumping beat and aforementioned vocals by Schaufler. Technically speaking, the song is very simple, with only subtle changes in the music throughout and a couple of lines of vocals that are repeated throughout the song. It's sort of like what you'd get if you took a song by Underworld and stripped it down to its most essential elements, leaving all the vocal gymnastics and other flashy tricks behind.
Of course, the great thing about the release (and something that makes it nearly hypnotic at times) is how Schaufler is able to hold attention with very minor changes in songs. He definitely has an ear for the slight tweaks that keep things interesting, and whether its the rubbery beat and quiet melodic progression in "The Long Way" or the backwards loops in "Lovers Rock" that pop out at just the right moments to punctuate the galloping beats, the release is far from repetitive.
The weakest part of the album is no doubt the middle third of the 9 tracks, as "Traume" gives vocal reigns to Charlotte Roche and comes off sounding like a watered down trip-hop track while "Fever" is a cover of the familiar track and tosses all subtlety out the window and suffers because of it. Fortunately, the album picks up nicely in the latter third and even ups the ante with what is probably the best track on the release in "Happiness." Shuffling with a stuttering piano riff, the track easily takes on the most aggressive feel of any track on the release and pounds away before giving way to stirring quiet sections that build the tension for when the beat will drop again. In the three years since his first single on the label, it seems that Schaufler has embraced everything from pop to the minimal Cologne sound and has managed to boil everything down into the very listenable and infectious Here Comes Love.
Rating: 7.5
