To Rococo Rot - Speculation

For their eighth album, To Rococo Rot maintain their established aesthetic - impersonal atmosphere, sparingly stocked with isolating electronics and organic krautrock grooves. Their music does very little, but it does it well. Seele is an early treat, its processed piano striking and shattering glitchy electronica and intricate drums, but it’s relatively conventional by the Berlin trio’s standards. Things don’t get weird till No Way To Prepare’s tuneless squall, but that’s only a thirty-second bridge linking the sparse pulse of Forwardness to Working Against Time’s minimal synth-squiggles. The closing Fridays is a more interesting departure from the template; washes of electronic noise are lightly infiltrated by organ courtesy of Faust’s Jochen Irmler, the amorphous result shifting throughout its ten and a half minute sprawl. But dissecting Speculation and analysing its tracks individually is to drain it - as a complete work this is an excellent addition to a moody discography. [Chris Buckle]