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ARTIST
TITLE
Walls
FORMAT
CD
LABEL
CATALOG #
STRIKE 084CD
STRIKE 084CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
6/5/2007
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2011 repress. Walls is the fifth full-length album for Apparat, aka Berlin's Sascha Ring, who had one hell of a year 2006. His collaboration with Ellen Allien, the critically-acclaimed album Orchestra of Bubbles, forged electrifying new connections between techno, electro and pop music. Somewhere in between all the laud and acclaim and touring, he managed to record his first solo studio album since 2003's Duplex. Despite its title, Walls isn't about dividing lines. Instead, it describes a circle that pulls many elements together into a protected, enclosed space where they jostle and roam free: strings and mallet instruments; rock guitar and gravelly sawtooth synths; stuttering digital percussion and muscular studio drumming. What might be most striking about Walls is the way it creates a kind of single, sustained mood -- this is an album for listening to all in one go, front to back. This is one of those road-trip records, one of those coming-down records, one of those bedding-down records. The record veers from the chamber minimalism of "Not A Number," with its cello and vibraphones, to the bluesy rock of "Hailin' From The Edge." "Fractales Pt. 1" offers a sound that longtime Apparat listeners might recognize as most typical, while "Bassis" is, in its purest sense, a pop song, as ephemeral as clouds and as solid as the ground you're standing on -- a fitting contradiction for a record that draws equally from software and acoustic instrumentation. Important guests and collaborators on this record include Telefon Tel Aviv's Josh Eustis, who did the album's final mixdown in Chicago, as well as the talented Raz Ohara, who contributes his smoky vocals. Walls houses a magic box: a compact hour of music that promises to give back many times as much in pleasure. Apparat has melded his genius as a sound designer with his growing songwriting talents to craft 14 songs brimming with ideas, energy, texture, light, color. They are hummable, embraceable, swimmable, possibly edible.
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