Holger Zilske - Holz

HOLGER ZILSKE - HOLZ (Playhouse)

Although I find most records emerging from Germany at the moment to be too pristine and anaemic for their own good right now, there’s something about this album that has caught the ear over the last couple of weeks. In general Playhouse are in the upper echelon of labels of this nature, and there’s always something different going on with their releases. Zilske used to be part of Smash TV, one of BPitch Control’s better signings, but has now gone his own way and we now have his first long player to deliberate over.

To be honest my own thoughts on this are that it’s an almost atomic level of detail and production that separates this from one thousand other release of this type, that’s to say that it really is no different from them, but something almost intangible steers it in the right direction. The pacing, atmosphere and beats are standard, as is the range of styles on offer, but somewhere in amongst it is an alchemical touch that nudges us away from trudging down the same old minimal album path. In particular tracks like “Druckraum”, steeped in Detroit sensibility, have an archaeological feel to them, as if he’s gone back to listening to old Shake or Model 500 tracks for inspiration. In amongst the obligatory jacking DBX style efforts, there is the subtle nuance of “Golden”, a slow beat propelling a beautiful melodic refrain that whilst it doesn’t grow, is refreshing to hear in amongst the more dancefloor orientated tracks.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what I refer to above as marking this out as different, perhaps it’s the taut production, and the placing of particular sounds, but the standout track “Have a Cup of This” helps a little, whilst drenched in narcotic bass that one might expect to hear at Watergate at 7am, it’s blessed with slivers of tonal changes and a psychedelic climax that mark it out as one of the standouts in this genre that I’ve heard this year, and brings the album to a satisfying end, the final track “To Them To Me” with vocalist August Landelius complementing matters with a quiet, sobering finish, double bass underpinning some simple but effective soundscapes.

This sounds like something of a quixotic review, and I fully admit that it is hard to see what has marked “Holz” out as different from the one thousand and one other minimal albums one will in 2009, but I guess given the Smash TV legacy, that Zilske has something a little unusual to offer, and although much of what I heard on the album is rather standard, there is a lot of pleasure to be gained by sifting through the good on it.

Toby Frith