na: apparat

The beat goes on. We got a host of releases from Shitkatapult today. Some of them are pretty good – most of them are from a name that you already know.

We got three things today from Apparat: two LPs and an EP that’s half original stuff/half remixes. 2001’s Multifunktionsebene and 2003’s Duplex are the albums and they’re very much precursors to Apparat’s current pop techno sound. You can tell that Sascha Ring (the man behind the project) loved the softer side of Autechre and Aphex Twin and tried to emulate their breakthroughs. They’re both mostly instrumental and could interest fans of Walls, but I’d advise you to tread lightly. I, of course, love them both because Autechre’s Tri Repetae is one of my favorite albums of all time. If you love that one and haven’t heard of these, get thee to downloading.

That EP that I mentioned above (Silizium, released in 2005), though, has a few tracks on it that may remind you a bit of Walls. The first five tracks are Apparat’s and on them you can hear how Ring was beginning to incorporate strings and vocals into his sound. For the most part it’s pretty successful. I’d suggest jumping in with “Komponent.” The rest are far more abstract and don’t always gel in the same way that Walls‘ best moments do.

Try
“7,5 T” and “Multifocus” from Multifunktionsebene
“Wooden” and “Cerro Largo” from Duplex
“Komponent” from Silizium