Although it still has pretty amazing cachet, I bet most electronic music nerds would agree that Kompakt's facing a tough brief as it powers through its second decade as a label. For starters, it no longer seems to produce the kind of paradigm-breaking acts or tracks like it did when microhouse was in its heyday. For seconds, the parallel ascendancy of Kompakt-inspired labels like Brooklyn's Wolf + Lamb has hinted at a generational shift in techno; one could now argue that Kompakt is more revered than it is fashionable-- aging well, but aging nonetheless.
And while the label has always looked further afield than most gave it credit for, it's still tough to feel like the signing of California-based husband and wife duo Danny and Tiffany Preston isn't a quietly precedent-setting move, and one that's perhaps indicative of a more open mandate towards new kinds of sounds. Taken in isolation, that in itself is probably a good thing; after all, one need look no further than Warp to find a shining example of an imprint that refreshed itself by expanding on its initial remit. Here's the bad thing, though: Rainbow Arabia are kind of awful.
The elevator pitch is that Rainbow Arabia make post-punky, pan-global electronic synthpop. Between their polyglot of rhythms and singer Tiffany's array of no-wave vocal affectations, they're clearly making a play for the space between M.I.A., the Knife, the Slits and the kind of generalized 80s new-wave nostalgia that's quickly moving from a place of fashionableness and freshness into grim parody.
In fact, it's kind of hard to watch the video for lead single "Without You"-- in which Tiffany dresses up like a mime and pogos meaningfully around the streets of Serbia while Danny sits cross-legged in the background and sheepishly stabs away at a small Casio keyboard-- without feeling like it is some sort of parody. The art direction is so consciously oddball, the music so artfully spiky, the energy so telegraphed, and the global aspect so clearly worn like a badge that it's hard not to feel like it's some sort of nadir.
Boys and Diamonds bustles with African, Indian, and Caribbean rhythms, and boasts some genuinely interesting production in places. But the songwriting is ultimately too blocky and dull and slapped together for it to succeed as the thing it most wants to be-- a pop record. "Without You" aside, there's very little touch on display here; most of the tracks are blunt instruments that feel like they were composed in two stages-- the complicated but occasionally unfocused production first, the aimless caterwauling later. I listened to this record about 15 times and still had trouble retaining any of it, so I asked iTunes to randomly select one last song to write about and got "Papai", a dour, sorta-instrumental thing that's stuffed full of clattering sound effects, icy synths, bongo drums, and some fun-fair-haunted-house-ready chanting. It may not work as a song, but it's a perfect parable for why Rainbow Arabia miss: You can see what they were trying to do, but that's a long way from feeling it.
