You Dee - Through The Tulips

In the last 90s, Sven Rieger and Peter Hansen joined forces to create graffiti art. After a short stint, the two decided that their true artistic love was music and ditched the spray cans for electronic instruments. Just after the turn of the century, Stephan Wust joined the group and the following year the trio released their debut album Adapter, a batch of minimal electronic dance tracks that defied the usual standards by actually clocking in at fairly short running lengths.

Through The Tulips (Tiny Tim song title reference intentional or not?) follows in the same footsteps as the first album from the group, presenting fifteen more tracks that develop quickly with buzzes and clicks and warm swaths of fuzzy sound, then leave you wondering whether DJs will be adventurous enough to throw some of these shorter pieces into their mix. Of course, calling Through The Tulips a true dance album is a bit misleading, because the trio tries all kinds of stuff on the release. "Crime Time" opens the release in a super minimal way, skimming repetitive electronic meanderings over a sluffing beat and occasional squelches. "Krasse Terasse" almost sounds like an 80s synth pop track (think Depeche Mode) without the vocals while "Jawolla Sambucca" finds some pretty acoustic guitar melodies weaving over an old-school drum machine beat.

The middle of the release gets even more strange as "Seemanns-Garn" is a sort of a short lament comprised solely of accordion while "Chimmey Sweet" drops glitchy orchestra bell tones over a minimal ping-pong beat and a hazy drone. Oddly enough, the album is perfectly content to jump all around the genre palette, at times sounding like the group is trying to drop a Kompakt-esque number while at other times feeling much closer in spirit to fellow Deutschland musicians To Rococo Rot. Fortunately, the trio has a good ear for sound and while their musical output is all over the board, most of it works pretty well. With fifteen tracks that have an average running length of under four minutes, they also don't let anything linger on for too long. If you're feeling adventurous, Through The Tulips offers up some great pop anti-programming.

Rating: 6.75

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