The title of the latest collaboration between brothers Wolfgang and Reinhard Voigt translates as "The Magical World of Others". It fits in a sense: Die zauberhafte Welt der Anderen is less the straightforward collection of minimal techno that you might expect from the pair's individual catalogs than an hour-long immersion into a universe that the Voigts have been building for ages, but only occasionally allow outsiders inside.
It's a world with its own unique dynamic. The tracks don't present themselves up front, but rather unspool without hurry, changing shape dramatically in the process. "Intro König" opens with droning, electronically generated textures, then layers on lush, spookily dissonant strings before suddenly transforming into a strangely psychedelic house track piled with backwards guitar loops, a barking dog, and weird, unidentifiable amusical sounds flickering across the spectrum. The ambiguous Eastern drone that makes up the two-minute-long "Akira" reappears at the end of the album in the form of the 26-minute "Akira Mantra".
Throughout the LP there are repeated vague hints that the Voigt brothers' world has some sort of storyline running through it, like we're hearing the score to a film that only exists in their shared imagination. Near its end, the Euroclubby "Hotel Noki" breaks down into twinkling piano and a recording of someone pulling up on a motorcycle, then pulling away again. If there's not a narrative element to the song, the Voigts are very cleverly messing with our heads by strongly implying that there is.
A narrative would help explain some of the odder choices that the pair makes throughout the album. Even after spending half the record making it clear that they intended to stretch outside of their usual aesthetic territoriy, with tracks that reference industrial music, hard rock, and even a little bit of blues, the mid-album detour into electronic smooth jazz on "Sozial" (complete with flute solo) is a jarring surprise. The dissonant drone that enters part-way through the song to add a hint of menace to the schmaltz makes it a weirdly discomfiting listen.
That discomfort, and wondering why the Voigts would want to unsettle their listeners with such a sinister track, are intriguing. "Sozial" would be perfect as the soundtrack to a particularly sleazy scene in a David Lynch movie, but otherwise I can't think of a good reason to spend several minutes listening to malefic electro smooth jazz. There are a few other missteps: A couple of tracks offer the tasteful, Germanic approach to house music that's generally associated with the lobbies of boutique hotels. And "Akira Mantra" is 26 minutes of just one loop that never seems to evolve in any way, which isn't meditative but maddening.
It's not all bad, though. "Der Keil NRW" has the glossy black sheen of an 80s John Carpenter soundtrack. The plump synthesizers and Teutonically rigid rhythm of "Triplychon Nummer 7" are pleasantly reminiscent of vintage European EBM. And "Intro König" is just fascinatingly weird. Die zauberhafte Welt der Anderen works best if you go ahead and make up the movie that you want it to be the soundtrack to. It's unlikely to be a magical one, but it's certainly got transportive potential.
