Luneberg, Germany-based electronic producer Andreas Otto first emerged on the Pingipung imprint back in 2004 with his debut album as Springintgut, Posten 90, and three years on this follow-up, Park And Ride, shows Otto shifting his wares to the Manchester/Berlin-based City Centre Offices label, home to the likes of Porn Sword Tobacco and Boy Robot. With all 11 tracks here produced by Otto over a two year period spanning between 2004 and 2006 partly in his own home in the middle of the forest and the rest in urban Amsterdam, in this case the title proves to be a literal one. According to Otto himself, the Park in this instance represents the more melancholic tracks which were recorded at home in the forest, while the more upbeat material recorded in Amsterdam falls into the Ride category. While there are certain immediate similarities to Mouse On Mars’ production approach in the way in which Otto fuses sampled instrumental performances with complex glitchy programming to create incredibly detailed yet warm soundscapes, in this case, it’s the breadth of different sampled textures that really brings this collection to life.
With Otto himself employing cello, drums, bass and glockenspiel as well as various electronic equipment and his own Fello 1.0 software (which can be downloaded at http://audio.uni-lueneburg.de/extern/fello), the degree of intimately recorded instrumental warmth frequently calls to mind Uwe “Atom’ Schmidt and Burnt Friedman’ jazz-tinged sample-based collaborations as Flanger. There’ certainly more than a stray hint of the aforementioned duo’s work in the downbeat, glitch-laden dub-jazz of “Precastor’, with vocalist Kazumi’s clear tones ringing out over a brooding backing of plucked cellos and dry, almost skeletal rhythms as harsh electronic noise crackles at the very edges.
The blissfully optimistic-sounding opener “Day Off’ meanwhile calls to mind the sort of undulating warm electronics showcased by Mouse On Mars on their Niun Niggung album, with Max Fey’s gentle guitar chords being bent and twisted around melancholy-sounding cellos while rattling electro rhythms somehow manage to maintain the track’ elastic rolling momentum. “Colossos’ manages to throw things into more upbeat gear, with snapping hiphop rhythms making their way between fuzzed-up Moog-y synths and all manner of treated guitar harmonics, before “Seoul Drops’ indulges in some intricate sample processing, manipulating the sounds of dripping water alongside what sounds like strummed banjo, before the two sampled elements interwine and it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. It’s just one example of many fascinating moments best appreciated through a good set of headphones on Park and Ride; rendering this an extremely impressive second album from Otto as Springintgut that’s well worth investigating.
Chris Downton
