Tussle's music frequently resembled electro-funk-as-astronaut ice cream: dehydrated, alkaline, functional but in an abstemious way. As Arp, ex-member Alexis Georgopoulos has retained his old group's basis in krautrock and modular synthesis but has taken it in freer directions, relaxing out of Tussle's parched technicality across a string of increasingly warm, woolly and hard to categorize records. As Arp's first two efforts form a symmetrical pair, so does new EP Pulsars e Quasars with last year's improbable More.
On the 2007 debut In Light, Arp drifted serenely among cold stars, turning to the ethereal side of Tussle's beat-driven German electronic idiom. Then, he touched down on some clement sunset shore with the grainy, glowing 2010 effort The Soft Wave, hooking into the neo-new-age trend of Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds with minimal arpeggio suites. (Seldom has a musician's alias been so on-the-nose as Arp's: It's like if Tim Hecker called himself "Drone" or Axel Willner went by "Loop.")
Having dispensed with the nocturnal and diurnal sides of that aesthetic, Arp made a startling but ultimately comprehensible lateral leap to another part of the '70s electronic pop continuum on More, an art-pop album in the style of early Brian Eno, but more raw-boned and tattered. More omnivorous, too, with sonic touchstones spanning Tin Pan Alley, Motown, '60s garage rock, and '70s glam, all polished to one brassy consistency and decoratively etched with analog electronics.
Following the impeccable abstraction of its predecessor, More's prominent adenoidal vocals and live instrumentation took some getting used to before you could even hear it as the same artist. But there was a sense of continuity in the hushed crackle of analog signals, sealing in the garish songs. If it had come first, Pulsars e Quasars, a more evenly balanced between electronic instrumentals and vocal-led songs, would have made for a less abrupt transition.
Pulsars feels looser and livelier than More, using a pickup band rather than solo multi-tracking. On the title track, a jaunty guitar line, phased slightly green and nauseous, supports a stuffy vocal. After starting simply, the guitars gain definition and start to churn, with waves of distortion like impalpable explosions in the background, toward a cheering cherry sunburst finish. "UHF1" similarly begins in a metronomic place before the guitar phases start swooshing and crumpling in the far corners, pumping in a chaotic energy that cues mutations into dance-rock and heroic noise; in both songs, the instrumental melody is stickier than the faintly droll vocal intoning.
Though the psych-pop songs stand out, the instrumental electronic side of Arp, which gets two fine showings here, is arguably preferable. On "Chromatiques II (Extended Mix)", an elegant decanter of delicate periodic tones gorgeously fills and drains with morning light. Its many voices grow freer and freer, like a starchy choir gradually easing into gospel expression. Meanwhile, "New Persuasion (Version by Le Révélateur)" is a precise and detailed krautrock voyage, with low arpeggios tensed as if about to strike, a lurking bass like footsteps coming up behind you and a synth melody that wafts out like silver smoke on the dark.
There are a couple of weak spots on this EP: "Suns" is attention-getting as a blown-out noise intro but is not a piece you'd return to on its own, and “On Returning”, built on a loop of thickly chugging electric guitar chords, presses onward like a huge, mindless drill. It's pretty boring and one-note, but if Georgopoulos' indulgent, decadent tendencies produce the occasional dud, it seems a small price to pay for the intrigue of looking forward to what he’s going to do next.
