★★★☆☆
On potentially the biggest EDM LP of the year, Kölsch practises stadium scales as a keyboard lesson warm-up, taking further liberties when the breakdowns to “Bappedekkel” and “Loreley” seem to be played left-handed. If you’re pro chemical reactions under the sun, 1977 is a year you’ll always remember. If you break down the mechanics, it’s just another EDM album from someone who isn’t plastered all over MTV.
This is surely forthcoming, given the Swedish House Mafia/Armin van Buuren-like “All That Matters”, the album’s only vocal track. European rule bakes the LP with a thin cheese crust, giving you a stereotyped cultural appendix to an EDM/trance step-by-step. Reference points are obvious throughout, loading 8-bits many a time, reigniting the spirit of “Strings of Life” on “Der Alte”, though a good piano track will never go out of fashion. Tunnel rusher “Basshund” firms up a Mylo pressure drop, “Zig” & “Loreley” have posters of Xpansions and Southside Spinners on their wall, and “Eiswinter’s” dirt bike bass, the one-time Kölsch swishes about in the gutter, rides dirty to Hervé’s “Better than a BMX.”
Defending Kölsch, his sound is allowed to generate and find a way rather than immediately look for the payoff, making the ensuing pyrotechnics, shall we say, slightly less silicone-based. While swinging the keys to a church of easy access euphoria, it’s a small token to bear in mind when you’ve written him off into the EDM flock.
File under: Gui Boratto, Benny Benassi, Tiësto