Ellen Allien, electro DJ extraordinaire: what the heck can’t this woman do? Originally Ellen Fraatz (it doesn’t roll off the tongue the way Ellen Allien does), she was born in Germany and got into electronic music just as the Berlin Wall came down. From there, she became resident DJ at a goodly number of German clubs, including the legendary Berlin nightclub Tresor, started her own label called Braincandy, then when that went kaput, she threw a ton of rad dance parties and established the venerable techno label BPitch Control in 1999. Eleven years later, she’s still throwing down, releasing her sixth full-length album Dust. She’s collaborated with experimental electro artist Apparat, hosted a radio show, and stood behind countless decks spinning sweet tunes, wearing superfly Nikes and giggling all the while. It’s hard to not respect this woman.
And while the German minimalist-electro and IDM (intelligent dance music) scenes have received their share of criticism, Allien seems to pay no mind; from the bubbly charm of Berlinette (2003) to 2006’s austere Thrills, she keeps fiddling with vintage synths and vocal effects to make intricate, pulsating electronic music. It’s not necessarily trendy, but it’s certainly inventive and danceable. So at first listen, Dust is baffling. One would expect the album to sound moderately good through a pair of speakers, given Allien’s proclivity for dance music (witness her collaboration with Apparat for the banger “Leave Me Alone”) but the magic, initially, just ain’t there. The beats sound flat, the bass is almost nonexistent, hooks are near-imperceptible, and in general it’s hard to imagine a dance floor full of kids bouncing and sweating all over each other to this music—what’s the deal?
But wait—plug in some headphones and try it again. Suddenly the bass gets bouncier, the synths are more textured, and the vocals make sense. Once you get up close and personal, the first track, “Our Utopie,” transforms from tinny repetition to cool, mystic minor-key bounce. Synths slither over and under each other; Allien breathes, “The sky/The taste/Our utopie/We count 1,2,3/And we’re still here,” then the verse reverses and the vocals get gobbled up. The subtleties are swallowed in speakers, but with headphones, every detail is absorbed—and it’s good stuff, too.
The best, most accessible songs on Dust are guitar-driven and almost poppy, like “Sun the Rain,” which begins on a minimal line before multiplying into layers of lush, harmonic guitar, then dissolving back to a simple beat over the low end, before finally returning to a swirling, Ratatat-esque peak. “You” is an insistent, upbeat pseudo-rock song with the catchiest hooks on the album, not to mention unexpectedly sexy vocals. Allien sings, “It’s good to fly high/I’m not afraid, I’m ready.” The sounds on the album are varied—everything from cheery glockenspiel to squiggly worms of bass—and a lot of times it’s hard to tell what’s analog and what’s digital, the live compared to the programmed. “Ever” maintains a standard 2/4 digital dance beat, but the increasingly complex bell/harp parts could have been produced by actual human hands. At the end of “My Tree,” there’s a cute little oboe-ish section, but is it a real instrument or a clever bit of programming? The tension and sheer intricacy of each song certainly live up to the lofty standards of intelligent dance music.
This stuff isn’t for everyone—songs like “Flashy Flashy” and “Dream” essentially take one repetitive musical theme and throw something weird on top, like the tribal flute that punctuates “Dream,” or the granular, icy boy-girl vocals on “Flashy Flashy.” Allien knows how to sing confidently, as heard on “You,” so it’s frustrating to see her fall back on monotone, digitally warped chanting. Thankfully she drops some stellar verses on “Huibuh,” a song whose instrumentals sound like a b-side from Prince circa ’83. The bongos are relaxed and funky and complement the straight-up techno beat. It’s a chill, thoroughly enjoyable ride.
Dust isn’t about the songs that get everybody on to the dance floor—it’s made of the kind of complex, miniaturized electro jams you have to keep in your headphones, like a secret known only to you.
Track List:
1. Our Utopie
2. Flashy Flashy
3. My Tree
4. Sun the Rain
5. Should We Go Home
6. Ever
7. You
8. Dream
9. Huibuh
10. Schlumi
