Cyclic Defrost

Ahhh, PupKulies and Rebecca. I loved their last album, Beyond The Cage, but I’m going to say that this new one, Burning Boats, is even better. To a backdrop of deep house moves, the duo construct pop with depth and resonance and it’s been on high rotation on my various music machines for a couple of weeks now.

The album opens with the 6/8 acoustic guitar shuffle of the title track, which somehow beguilingly morphs into a propulsive 4/4 drive with strange wooden percussion melodies, then slides back to dark 6/8 piano blues to resolve. Some lighter pop follows in ‘Hold It Tight’ with its intimate disco groove. ‘Nouvelle Chance’ is a bit of departure with a Django Reinhardt gypsy swing over gently pulsing electronics. In other hands it could sound trite, but the duo keep enough darkness lurking to hold it in check. The inclusion of more acoustic instruments adds more timbral variety, with piano played by regular collaborator Sepp Singwald being particularly prominent, no better than on ‘Idiot’. Rebecca Gropp’s voice is another trumpcard. The group is based in Berlin but mostly sing in English. On this album, some French also seeps in (on the aforementioned ‘Nouvelle Chance’ and ‘Ton Chauffer’). But what is most appealing is the dryness and directness of both her melodies and delivery. She avoids Eurovision tackiness completely, yet still retains an element of otherness, maybe a type of in-tune Nico, but with a much greater range and softer texture.

There is so much space to breathe on this album, and the production is constantly inviting – exploratory, layering small sounds, avoiding brashness, but building a bass heavy cushion to frame everything else that happens. It is rare to find great songwriting successfully utilised in the more underground strands of electronic music, but it is to be found here. When pop is done right, there’s nothing quite like it. PupKulies and Rebecca seem as though they have the ability to consistently do it right.

Adrian Elmer

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