Roman Flügel has released hundreds of tracks over the roughly quarter-century since he began putting out records, and in them he has explored many permutations of four-on-the-floor dance music: hard techno, acid trance, willfully lunkheaded electro-house, lyrical deep house. The Frankfurt native doesn't tend to stay in any one place for too long. On his 2014 album Happiness Is Happening he delved into glinting synth-pop and Krautrock's motorik chug; earlier this year, his Verschiebung EP explored polyrhythmic drum sounds as dry and scratchy as strep throat.
Even within the context of that panoply of styles, All the Right Noises stands out as something we haven't heard from him before. The moods and sounds may be recognizable from his recent work, much of which has tilted toward contemplative states; glinting synthesizer patches transmit a pensive air, and the analog drum machines maintain a kind of stone-faced calm. But this is the furthest that Flügel has strayed from the dancefloor, at least for such an extended stretch.
It isn't strictly an ambient album. “Warm and Dewy” plows ahead at a quick-stepping 130 beats per minute, battered by tablas and brandishing hi-hats that couldn't be sharper if they'd come straight from the J.A. Henckels factory. (This, too, is new territory for Flügel: The drums sound a lot like he's been listening to Shackleton’s classic Skull Disco fare, in fact). But four-on-the-floor beats are an exception rather than the norm, and even when they appear, they make a beeline away from the functionalist dictates of contemporary dance music. Following the gorgeous, clear-eyed ambient opener, “Fantasy,” “The Mighty Suns” drops us into a curious kind of middle ground: It's fast-paced, but it feels half-speed; the pulse nods to dub, yet the bright keys and faintly naïve melodies echo Kraftwerk. It sweeps you up in colliding waves of contrapuntal melodies, a sensation at once both relaxing and slightly unsettling: You're never quite sure in which direction it will move next.
Rhythmically, the album peaks early, just three tracks in, with the polyrhythmic lurch of “Dead Idols.” Triplets snap against 4/4 rhythms, and an off-kilter clunk pulls the groove into a strange, elliptical shape; the first dozen times you hear it, you can practically feel your brain straining to parse the timekeeping. Shackleton's influence is audible here, too, along with the doomy menace of an artist like Demdike Stare, with wraithlike voices ratcheting up the tension as minor-key bleeps sound an ominous alarm. The rest of the album tackles far more soothing sounds: “Nameless Lake” harnesses the chirps and chimes of Amber-period Autechre; the elegant, strutting “Dust” reimagines Jean-Michel Jarre as downbeat acid; and the melancholy “Planet Zorg” is sad-sack ambient house with a hint of shoegaze thrown into the mix, sparking memories of Superpitcher remixing M83.
But the most satisfying material here may be the simplest. “Believers” offers the merest hint of kalimba plucks spun through delay and the occasional piano chord. Very little happens, and captivatingly so. The same goes for the closing song, which at first listen might sound like a new age spa soundtrack, complete with electronic crickets deep in the mix. Listen closely, though, and you can hear Flügel's playful spirit at work in the song's richly expressive piano and restless synthesizer improvisations. He effortlessly squeezes so many ideas into its barely-there, four-minute frame, it's easy to wish he'd settle in and record an entire album of such quietly masterful pastoral mood-setting.
