eMusic Review
After a string of albums that have billowed and swelled in various ways, Ellen Allien sounds markedly minimal on Sool — but not necessarily “minimal” in the way it's come to mean in so much 21st-century techno and house. Whereas minimalism stands as a matter of particular rhythmic priorities and detailed sound-design in dance clubs from to Seattle to Berlin, on Sool it's more simply a matter of measurably less sound. Most of the tracks have something like a techno gait moving beneath them, but none could work as a banging anthem. Instead, Allien sounds more invested in moods and atmospheres — the kinds of ticks and textures that haunt dance music and haunt all the more when placed so nakedly in the foreground.
“Einsteigen” starts with delicate chimes mixing with a voice announcing a Berlin train station (sure to thrill anybody who festishizes that German paradise of techno culture). “Caress” follows with a creeping beat and a female voice draped in folds over synths that skulk and sigh. The cut-up voices are a hallmark of the “sound poet” AGF, a collaborator on Sool whose presence can be heard in the stretched and abstracted electronics of tracks like “Ondu.” Otherwise,… read more »
