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ARTIST
TITLE
Working Class
FORMAT
CD
LABEL
CATALOG #
STRIKE 107CD
STRIKE 107CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
10/13/2009
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This is the second full-length solo album by Berlin's Daniel Meteo. Working Class is a painting, a patina-coated classic, a precious collection of bourgeois oddities that are heavy, deep and dark. Meteo packs his (steamer) trunk with 11 uncanny, old-fashioned tracks, veering between house and electronica. Meteo kicks it all off with a roughly-hewn club beat, then slathers on layer upon layer of DIY piano loops, fluttering melodies, creaking bass lines and constantly-shifting, spellbinding harmonics. Working Class shrugs off its house-y pretensions to reveal its true, underlying nature as a modern soul album. Unshackled from concepts, quotations, and its own history, all the tracks follow their own mood and take a leisurely stroll through the club scene before a quick dip into the abyss. "On The Corner"'s massive, dark walls of chords, the soulful clarions on "Return Of The Pure" or the Moodyman-inspired "Working Class" cherish and celebrate deepness and groove without any overt gestures, tricky beats or rave-centric hi-hats in favor of a more dreamlike and picturesque composition. In a way, the Detroit-esque FM interplay "Signals" and the trad-house homage of "Grace" seem to herald a new chapter or classic B-side. All of a sudden, there is more levity, more treble, more light and clarity, culminating in the gloriously-mumbled vocal track "In The Mood." A huge club hit and eminently listenable, its snappy lyrics stick in your brain long after the last chord has faded. In-your-face beats, off chords, techno bass -- done. A brief respite for weary souls, the remaining three tracks float dreamily through the evening sky: "Schön Feddich" and "Opener" plus the piano exercise "Reclam," with the latter skirting dangerously close to a kitsch-infused piss-take. The album's artwork -- courtesy of Bianca Strauch -- shows a photograph by Daniel's sister Kathrin Peters and depicts the garden of an old bourgeois home. Beautiful classicism, just like this album.
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