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CD
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TR 596CD
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$16.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/23/2026
More than two decades after their formation, Urlaub in Polen continue to celebrate an aesthetic of transience -- an experience bounded by time, poured into the project's very name -- set against a continuous flow of new impressions and a suitcase slowly filling with memorabilia. After a longer hiatus, their 2020 album All (TR 461CD marked a return with a warped take on krautrock, a direction which their new release Objects, Beings and Parrots both follows and expands upon. In true eclectic tradition, it ventures further into diverse genre territories -- always exploratory, yet never losing its thread. Multi-instrumentalist Georg Brenner and drummer Jan Philipp Janzen blaze a trail through a dense web of references (see also the cover collage merging tile selections, retro interior suggestions, and archaeology textbook cutouts), evoking a warm feeling of being taken along for the ride -- even as the band refuses to be pinned down to any clear musical category. Take the opener, "Abacus": kicking off with a drum machine and subtle guitar flourishes, it already nods -- title included -- to the mechanical, forward-clicking motorik sound of first-generation krautrock. Then it takes a turn, morphing into a grooving jam with increasingly dense sound layers, howling guitars, and the band's signature clipped vocal phrases -- calling to mind flashes of '90s noise rock. Next up on this winding path: a washing machine -- here manifested in layers of wide synth textures, crashing drums, distorted guitars, and vocals that end in a staccato-like cough. It's a shaking, rattling trip through a cosmos of self-willed machinery and a comforting embrace of imperfection. And so the transformation continues: sometimes as wavering retrofuturism ("Fame & Fortune"), sometimes as surprisingly melodic acoustic pop -- complete with a woodland brass solo ("Jaki's Love Time") -- and always through the weaving of finely crafted rhythmic repetitions with sonic experimentation. The Objects, Beings and Parrots in this flow form vague images, points of orientation and pause: at once recognizable elements drawn from pop and art history, and yet as fleeting and abstract as the track that shares their name. You can hear the album's decelerated genesis: after a lengthy writing phase, the tracks were recorded across multiple sessions at the secluded MARS Studio in Germany's Eifel region. The result is a trippy, self-contained celebration of persistence -- of pushing forward, without excluding moments of stillness, and with the occasional glance in the rear-view mirror.
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LP
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TR 596LP
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$26.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/23/2026
LP version. More than two decades after their formation, Urlaub in Polen continue to celebrate an aesthetic of transience -- an experience bounded by time, poured into the project's very name -- set against a continuous flow of new impressions and a suitcase slowly filling with memorabilia. After a longer hiatus, their 2020 album All (TR 461CD marked a return with a warped take on krautrock, a direction which their new release Objects, Beings and Parrots both follows and expands upon. In true eclectic tradition, it ventures further into diverse genre territories -- always exploratory, yet never losing its thread. Multi-instrumentalist Georg Brenner and drummer Jan Philipp Janzen blaze a trail through a dense web of references (see also the cover collage merging tile selections, retro interior suggestions, and archaeology textbook cutouts), evoking a warm feeling of being taken along for the ride -- even as the band refuses to be pinned down to any clear musical category. Take the opener, "Abacus": kicking off with a drum machine and subtle guitar flourishes, it already nods -- title included -- to the mechanical, forward-clicking motorik sound of first-generation krautrock. Then it takes a turn, morphing into a grooving jam with increasingly dense sound layers, howling guitars, and the band's signature clipped vocal phrases -- calling to mind flashes of '90s noise rock. Next up on this winding path: a washing machine -- here manifested in layers of wide synth textures, crashing drums, distorted guitars, and vocals that end in a staccato-like cough. It's a shaking, rattling trip through a cosmos of self-willed machinery and a comforting embrace of imperfection. And so the transformation continues: sometimes as wavering retrofuturism ("Fame & Fortune"), sometimes as surprisingly melodic acoustic pop -- complete with a woodland brass solo ("Jaki's Love Time") -- and always through the weaving of finely crafted rhythmic repetitions with sonic experimentation. The Objects, Beings and Parrots in this flow form vague images, points of orientation and pause: at once recognizable elements drawn from pop and art history, and yet as fleeting and abstract as the track that shares their name. You can hear the album's decelerated genesis: after a lengthy writing phase, the tracks were recorded across multiple sessions at the secluded MARS Studio in Germany's Eifel region. The result is a trippy, self-contained celebration of persistence -- of pushing forward, without excluding moments of stillness, and with the occasional glance in the rear-view mirror.
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CD
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TR 461CD
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It has been nine years since Urlaub In Polen announced they were disbanding with the release of their fifth album Boldstriker. However, drummer Jan Philipp Janzen and multi-instrumentalist and singer Georg Brenner have always made up one of those rare and highly unlikely bands who, despite market laws to the contrary, have put the context of their own work above fads and opportunity without ever denying that they inhabit a particular historical moment. On All, their unexpected sixth album, it becomes immediately clear that the term "reunion", at least in the sense we've gotten used to, does not do this occurrence justice. All is light years away from offering a lukewarm rehashing of ancient recipes for success -- the album is highly ambitious and sounds fresh in its concentrated performance -- not unlike a debut. This is because the considerable advantages of a long-term musical relationship are at display throughout the record. Not only with regards to the tightness of performance, but also regarding a level of musical familiarity with one another; a rare feat that has always carried the band's musical explorations, and which balances the dynamics and structures of All as a whole. This interplay is accentuated by the record's production, for which Janzen (among others a founding member part of Von Spar, current drummer of Die Sterne and producer of Die Sterne, The Field, PTTRNS, Albrecht Schrader, etc.) and Brenner are also responsible. Urlaub In Polen have also always been a band that defies categorization. But what the songs on All have in common is an architecture evoking krautrock, developing sprawling synthesizer, and guitar workouts on the foundations of finely woven rhythm arrangements. The echoes of west coast pop (the harmonies and the bass), of Rhineland tech house and of early Dire Straits (the vocals and the guitar production) make All a characteristically versatile and international affair. The album shares with their previous efforts the interest and attention for sonic textures and contrasts, but showcases more constraint and focus. In place of noise, details and the enormous joy of playing between Brenner and Janzen come to the fore, equally in the stoic desert kraut hits "Impulse Response" and "THDT", the polyrhythmic "Overall", or the discoid "Proxy Music".
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Artist |
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Format |
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Catalog # |
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LP
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TR 461LP
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LP version. It has been nine years since Urlaub In Polen announced they were disbanding with the release of their fifth album Boldstriker. However, drummer Jan Philipp Janzen and multi-instrumentalist and singer Georg Brenner have always made up one of those rare and highly unlikely bands who, despite market laws to the contrary, have put the context of their own work above fads and opportunity without ever denying that they inhabit a particular historical moment. On All, their unexpected sixth album, it becomes immediately clear that the term "reunion", at least in the sense we've gotten used to, does not do this occurrence justice. All is light years away from offering a lukewarm rehashing of ancient recipes for success -- the album is highly ambitious and sounds fresh in its concentrated performance -- not unlike a debut. This is because the considerable advantages of a long-term musical relationship are at display throughout the record. Not only with regards to the tightness of performance, but also regarding a level of musical familiarity with one another; a rare feat that has always carried the band's musical explorations, and which balances the dynamics and structures of All as a whole. This interplay is accentuated by the record's production, for which Janzen (among others a founding member part of Von Spar, current drummer of Die Sterne and producer of Die Sterne, The Field, PTTRNS, Albrecht Schrader, etc.) and Brenner are also responsible. Urlaub In Polen have also always been a band that defies categorization. But what the songs on All have in common is an architecture evoking krautrock, developing sprawling synthesizer, and guitar workouts on the foundations of finely woven rhythm arrangements. The echoes of west coast pop (the harmonies and the bass), of Rhineland tech house and of early Dire Straits (the vocals and the guitar production) make All a characteristically versatile and international affair. The album shares with their previous efforts the interest and attention for sonic textures and contrasts, but showcases more constraint and focus. In place of noise, details and the enormous joy of playing between Brenner and Janzen come to the fore, equally in the stoic desert kraut hits "Impulse Response" and "THDT", the polyrhythmic "Overall", or the discoid "Proxy Music".
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