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Brainthe booklet: Berlintendo

With a delay of a few years, the influence of Dubstep on Dub now increasingly noticeable. Most of the time it's just the distorted bass sound that's quoted, but there are more far-reaching influences like z. B. with the band Braintheft, founded in 2016 and who traveled back to Berlin from the future in 2008. Your just presented album "Berlintendo" owes this Dubstep around 40 percent of his inspiration. Another 40 percent should be due to the bass sound of Bill Laswell. The remaining 20 percent are real reggaeDub. And it is precisely this distribution, which is quite unfavorable in terms of my favorite music, that spoils my unadulterated fun with “Berlintendo”. The album consists of three parts: the "Studio Mode" (studio recordings), the "Live Mode" (concert recordings) and the "Versus Mode" (remixes), which makes a total of 28 tracks. Common to all the pieces is a relaxed, dark, sometimes playful, electronic sound that cannot deny its handmade origin. But despite plenty of sound waves from the frequency cellar, the album lacks the right oomph. The music is too cerebral for me, the soundscapes too lengthy and the rhythms too unimaginative. As is so often the case with Bill Laswell, the music simply lacks the groove - not to mention the melodies. Everything that is “beautiful” in the classic sense about you Dub, is sacrificed here in favor of atmospheric soundscapes. Simple but perhaps captivating ideas are replaced by complicated compositions, plenty of breaks, rhythm changes and elaborate arrangements. But much is not necessarily more, as the strongest ideas are often the (apparently) simplest. Unfortunately, they are also the hardest to come by.

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