Roll the Dice - Roll the Dice

ROLL THE DICE - ROLL THE DICE (Digitalis)

The current vogue for analogue synthesizer-driven opuses continues with this, a limited edition vinyl release by Pedder Mannerfelt (of electropop Fever Ray stardom) and the wonderfully titled Malcolm Pardon. Like the much lauded Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never, this 50 minute, 7 track journey is steeped in reverence to the kosmische-laced footsteps that its forefathers took.

Digitalis do have a habit of releasing wonderfully listenable records with a certain idiosyncratic character, and this I admit is no different. From the outset, “The New Black” lays down a few ground rules for our journey with sinewy, predictable arpeggios that are played off against some plangent piano that thankfully. It’s moody, atmospheric and an indicator of what is to come. If that’s a mixture of Scandinavian isolationism and synthesizers, then “Swing” takes Klaus Doldinger-themed melodies and cooks it up with the uncertain exploratory style of Manuel Gottsching. Unfortunately, it’s rather too long, and also 30 years too late. I’m all for retelling of themes and styles, but they must be in context. This is replication for the sake of it, and the ideas of Kosmische were to a certain extent German alone. This xerox seems unnecessary.

Fortunately, matters are rescued by the doleful, shadowy clutter of “Guadeloupe”, which eschews the radiant excessiveness of the first two songs and marks a direction that has identity. “Into the Ground” goes further, mixing raw Drexciyan synth sounds against piano. It shouldn’t work, and for the most part doesn’t if I’m truthful, but there’s a sense of spirit in the attempt to merge these two themes together that pushes it along, and the former manages to unhook itself from the leash towards the end in a suitably deranged style. Slowly but surely the musical character of both Mannerfeld and Pardon begins to emerge - one playful and the other more restrained.

“Axee” is the most fruitful of the songs, its simplistic, treated piano oscillating around some abstract rhythms in a manner that echoes Roedelius and Moebius at their most playful. It lacks that extra sense of the structure being able to progress further, but there’s a childlike charm to it that resonates throughout and it binds the narrative of the album together in a more coherent sense. So it’s a shame that the album then closes in a predictable fashion, 11 minute long “Undertow” growing with burbling echoes of John Carpenter that threaten to turn into something more dramatic, but in the end failing to materialise into anything other than a suitably melodramatic closer.

As mentioned before, this is a listenable album, and there is much in the way of texture here. Yet I felt disappointed that apart from some tributes to the synthesizer gods of yore, there was frustratingly little in the way of the two very separate elements of Mannerfeld and Pardon showing their individual dynamics within the frame of the 7 tracks on offer. If you’re a fan of anything Tangerine Dream-related or similar, then there’s much to savour on “Roll the Dice”, but beyond that, little to cherish.

Toby Frith