Trost - Trust Me

Annika Line Trost is half of German digi-punks Cobra Killer, going it alone for the second time with new album Trust Me. She is a strikingly beautiful Berliner, making the kind of music you might expect a strikingly beautiful Berliner to make, but her seductive electronica with a krautrock edge is far from welcoming. The cold glassiness of tracks like the Martini-ad jazz-cool of Man on the Box or Cowboy’s whispered soul-meets-trip-hop vibe evoke the majesty of Portishead only fleetingly, more often resembling 90s lounge-bores Morcheeba faxed through passionless robotics. That said, in small doses the impassive tone manages to pass for detached nonchalance, The Scales and the Stone in particular resembling a lost 60s spy movie theme. But mostly it echoes the aimless dub-tronica of the Parisian DJ Colder - appropriately so, because while her aloof detachment probably works live, on record it’s the sound of reserved frostiness. [Chris Buckle]