Console – Herself

Somewhere on India’s Goa beach there is a man playing the first tune on this record, nodding his dreadlocked head, and feeling at one with the world; for the rest of us there is only the dull drone of ambient dance music and the grotty mental picture of a group of drunk, gap-year students pissing into the ocean. An electronic offshoot from German indie band The Notwist, Console’s Herself is a record lacking in both ideas and, sadly, soul.

Left to their own devices, synthesisers, keyboards and computers do not make instinctively engaging music, and Martin Gretschmann struggles to inject this work with any real verve, adrenalin or imagination. On the occasions a vocal is layered over the top the tunes become more boring still; attempted Goldfrapp-style stomper A Homeless Ghost is as irritating a piece of Europop as anything the Cheeky Girls have ever ground out. Not one for the Christmas list, unless it’s a secret Santa for that girl in accounts you’ve never liked. [PJ Meiklem]