From the bubbling warmth of his 2001 breakout track "Heroin" to his sympathetic click-house remix of Dntel's "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan", Superpitcher's Aksel Schaufler has always been Kompakt Records' resident softie. While his string of one-offs for various twelves, remixes, and Kompakt-branded compilations over the years have proven him master over all the Cologne label's chosen elements (microhouse, schaffel, pop), somewhere along the line he began to imbue his Superpitcher tracks with a warmth that made them unmistakably his.
Here Comes Love marks Schaufler's long-anticipated debut full-length and affords him the opportunity to tease out the gushy, starlit house template that his output has so far suggested. Opulent and lovestruck, it's a stunning record, not just for the way it decorates the Cologne sound with orange-y hues and elastic textures, but for the way it integrates them with a whole mess of newly introduced elements-- ambient collage, cabaret, and even glam.
We begin as we will finish, between the sheets. Crisp and clear, the seductive "People" drifts along on a watery bell loop, a clipped 2/4 beat and a lonely mellotron line while Schaufler whirs sweet nothings that eventually collapse under a tangle of limpid bell tones. As opening tracks go, it's a gorgeous beginning: surefooted, simple, and sweet. What follows, however, is indisputably the album standout: With its bright schaffel beat and scuffled loops, "The Long Way" begins with a nervous edge, constrained by its stuttering rhythm. Schaufler toys with that tension for a few minutes before introducing a piano line that diffuses it into thin air. It's a subtle tweak but a beautiful one nonetheless, the kind of minuscule detail that makes all the difference in the world when songs are as wide open and as spacious as these.
The three-minute "Sad Boys" is our first hint that Schaufler may have more up his sleeve than just lovey variations on the Kompakt theme. It's also the beginning of a four-song suite that sees him completely abandon anything resembling a house beat. Over a moody, two-chord organ loop and a spliced-up samba rhythm, Schaufler cops a trick from Roxy Music and goes straight for the elegantly overblown. "We ain't going nowhere 'cause... we don't go nowhere," he whispers. "'Cause... we stay right here 'cause... we are... sad boys for life."
From there, Schaufler jumps headlong into the shimmering cabaret of "Träume", the only one of the album's nine tracks to feature vocals by someone (Charlotte Roche) other than Schaufler. Destined to become the mid-morning centerpiece in many a summertime DJ set, "Träume"'s plastic, Casiotone production and brooding, Weill-influenced melody line mark Here Comes Love's dramatic high point.
And that's when things briefly go off the rails. The next two songs-- "Love Me Forever" and an ill-advised cover of the pop standard "Fever"-- are the album's low points. With its jerky organ line and absent-minded melodies, the former is a beatless, aimless mess that temporarily breaks the spell. "Fever" isn't quite as bad, but it does come across as clumsy and unnecessarily campy, as if Schaufler didn't trust that his original material would be enough to help us to locate his reference points.
However, not only does the album's final third restore the momentum, it also marks Schaufler's faithful return to deep, surging house. Framed by a mixed bag of submerged synth sounds and clanging chimes, the moody "Lover's Rock" lumbers out of the gate before settling into a nice trot. Better still is "Happiness", which, with its stomach-tugging electric keyboard vamp and gothic stringscape, counts as the record's rushiest six minutes.
Rather than closing out with a bang, the bittersweet disco shuffle of "Even Angels" unfurls itself gently, like a wool blanket coming undone, with a celestial reverb drone piece that accounts for at least eight of the track's 14 minutes. Vaporous and sweet, it's a more appropriate end to Schaufler's doe-eyed ruminations than any clubfloor banger could've been. Instead of sending us home with an abrupt kick out the backdoor, it lovingly parachutes us back to earth and then vanishes in a puff of goodwill.
In spite of its slight missteps, Here Comes Love is a beautifully textured, well-paced and sweepingly romantic record, the kind that has the swoony 18-year old in me conjuring twilight raves and beachfront campfire scenes in my head. Executed with a subtlety that the uninitiated might mistake for simplicity, it's also convincing proof that few artists are as gifted as Aksel Schaufler when he's got his warm jets on. Summer starts today.
