My personal history with Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Hurber's Tosca project shows the enduring strength of strong first impressions. I was a Kruder & Dorfmeister fan but somehow didn't get around to hearing Tosca's 1997 debut Opera until early '99. Opera's opener "Fuck Dub Part 1 + 2" immediately struck me as the best thing K or D had ever released, and even now I can't think of another track that so successfully weds the slow-burn funk rhythms of "golden age" hip-hop with the disorienting production tricks of dub. "Fuck Dub" to me was the ultimate expression of the weeded-out aesthetic those in the Kruder & Dorfmeister orbit cultivated (hydroponically, of course).
That the rest of the album was a mess-- basically a couple of great singles interspersed with an amalgamation of half-baked grooves, ambient drones, and crude recordings of old black guys talking the kind of jive German DJs find cool-- only added to my enjoyment. This sloppy handling of talent went down easy for a guy who stood ready to defend the genius of Mark's Keyboard Repair.
Tosca cleaned up right quick, though. Suzuki (2000) polished the rough edges of the debut and was recognized as the perfect accompaniment to the turn-of-the-millennium retail experience. No Gap manager was ever fired for throwing Suzuki on the store PA, which shouldn't take away from the fact that Tosca does crisp, catchy downtempo better than almost anybody (it's all in the bassline, you see). 2003's Dehli9 mixed things up a little by introducing samba and vocals but it looked as though the loose, weird Tosca of the first album was probably gone forever.
Now we have the fourth album. There's not much to report on the weird/novelty front, but Tosca remains in fine form. It's uncanny how just how much mileage these guys get from small, easy gestures, like the simple bass riff that drives the opening head-nodder "Rondo Acapricio". On the one hand it sounds borrowed, something you've heard a million times before in some overplayed rare groove classic. But it's also a signature sound, identifiable as Tosca and relentlessly catchy. Throughout the record Tosca employ guest stars of various styles and tongues (more than half the tracks have vocals) but it all fits easily into their highly refined world.
Egypt-born Parisian Samia Farah sassily lilts her way through the electro-cocktail number "Heidi Bruehl", Chris Eckman from The Walkabouts evokes the glamorous high-contrast noir of Chris Isaak as he half-sings on "John Lee Huber", and "Damentag" is perfectly frothy glitter disco. The bass throughout is astonishingly deep and clear, and for the first time in my reviewing career I feel compelled to give a shout-out to the mastering engineer.
Not all the songs work. "The Big Sleep" with its vibrato guitars and horns has a neo-roadhouse vibe but the vocals by Austrian rocker Graf Hadik sound like tossed-off space filler. Still, the good far outweighs the bad. J.A.C. is ultimately a simple record covering well-worn territory that is no less engaging for its familiarity. While it sadly does not return to the unpredictability and high highs of Opera, this is probably the best thing Tosca has released otherwise. If you're the type of person who values things like consistency and high production values this is the Tosca record to get.
