Elektro Guzzi

In a rich history of amplified sound, probably no guitar-bass-&-drums trio has moved further outside its instrumental comfort zone than Elektro Guzzi do here. Years of practice made them contestants for being the tightest machine funk outfit in the world, at a performance level few believed possible – just until you actually saw them on stage. With 'Observatory', the band now shifts everything anyone ever expected from a band onto another plateau. Tellingly, instrument credits have been wiped off the record sleeve. Still a string and a drum skin at the source, yet the sound emanating from the speakers seems to have traveled from a different source altogether. Utterly alien, 'Observatory' ultimately entails a paradigm shift for both, the performance of music – and the music performed.

Despite all software advances available, ironically it is this band that took the initiative to redesign the fantasy of how techno could leap into the future again. There is nothing retro about it: No citations of historic moments, no nostalgia, none of that. The album's tracks resemble a fantasy of a party on the edge of the solar system, with scraps of distant sound memories molded into a crushed bit stream of sound, resulting in a rather shocking abandonment of anything instruments were supposed to do. The recordings’ analog tape warmth comes as a stark contrast to the music’s skynet thrust: a time capsule of techno projected into the dark unknown. Metallic and bodily at the same time, a love cry miles from home.