Is it really possible to whisper in German? The language seems so naturally loud and boisterous that even intimate coos exchanged with my little Fraulein when I visited the country rang in my ears more as Sturm und Drang than pillow talk. Fricative whispers came out like menacing hisses, and pleasantries to "have und gute nacht" became jackbooted commands. That Barbara Morgenstern, by her voice alone, can find a supple middle ground that invokes neither a bondage-gear Heidi nor Nico in lederhosen on Nichts Muss speaks volumes about her sound sensibilities. She knows when to softly sing in Deutsch, when to slip into something a little more English for the internationally catchy choruses, and when to step back from the microphone and allow her piano playing to resonate.
"Aus Heiterem Himmel" pongs and pops with a rattling beat and honeyed vox that has folks like Dntel, Tarwater, and Ellen Alien already sticking to it with their recent remixes. Her piano glitches in and out of focus with a church organ moving slowly into the foreground. That organ is present again on "Nichts und Niemand", alluding to yet another bilingual pop group dabbling with technology, Stereolab. Her commanding coo to "come on, mooove" is titillating and utterly convincing, as are the glowing pin-prick ticks of a beat that tickle the ears and pulse about her cool piano keys.
For a techno-pop record, there are great expanses of the album that are stark and instrumental, warmed nicely by two stalwarts in the producers' chairs: Pole's Stefan Betke and Palais Schaumburg co-founder/ex-Orb collaborator Thomas Fehlmann. The German equivalent of having King Tubby and Jim O'Rourke manning the consoles, the two bring a nuanced clarity to the proceedings that is shockingly moderate and light. Avoiding the dense pulse of Fehlmann's microhouse work and the capacious crackles of Betke's more nominally recognized Pole persona, the two focus on keeping the beats both wispy and crispy, generally staying with simple percussive taps that give Morgenstern's supple voice and piano room to steal softly through the snow.
Surrounding the echoed crackle that reflects both Eyes Wide Shut's minimalist plinks and the chilly austerity of the ECM back catalog on a track like "Merci (Dass es Dich Gibt)", Betke rattles out some metal clangs that create sparks against the other elements, a testament to his skills beyond mere dub isolation chambers. "We're All Gonna Fucking Die" is certainly less dramatic than its title would hint at, but it's the most rocking of the set, thanks to the attack of the guitar across the red lights of the beat. The dropping in of plucked nylon strings to the flickering rhythms of the title track is the finest merger of acoustic and digital since the Spanish flurry of Basement Jaxx's Remedy and funky banjo of fellow countrymen The Notwist-- and the track expands to epic proportions when guitar kicks out a wah-wah funk lick midway through with some teeny electro ticks.
"Reset" is the most exquisite of the instrumental set, closing the album with the hiss of analog sizzle and an expansive, low-toned hover that takes full advantage of Betke's sound specialization, mixing in with gentle guitar figures. That, and the penultimate "Gute Nacht", encapsulate many sundry strands of Germany's electronic history: the glitch-pop format that Lali Puna and Neon Golden captured in miniature, the more abstract work of Morgenstern's two producers from the last two decades, and the electronic pastoral pleasures of Kraftwerk and Cluster that they all harken back to.
