Various Artists - KR Family Vol. 1

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  • If you live in Berlin, then you've probably heard of Kleine Reise. Located in the basement of a youth hostel, the tiny club feels more like a house party than anything else. Everyone seems to know everyone, and anything goes. On KR Family Vol. 1, the debut 12-inch for the label offshoot, this ethos appears to have carried over. Its three tracks are courtesy of the club's Irish founders, Peter Power and Dara Drea O'Neill, and little about them is normal. (The tracks, that is.) Power's name first bobbed up this time last year, on another inaugural record for another Berlin label, Crime City Disco. Clocking in at ten minutes long, "Sun-K" mixes canned crowd cheers with psychedelic guitar jamming. Its beat drops in and out like a weak radio signal, fleeting cowbells and luscious bass lending some real punch when the signal is locked. The guitar really makes it, however, alternately flittering, droning and oozing over the other elements, its timbre morphing with every passing second. The dainty "Red Roses" sounds impossibly exotic. Its super-slow beats and pirouetting music box twinkles are nice enough, but the foreign vocals and silken vintage strings really lift things to the next level. It almost seems like a purposeful response to the roughness of Power's other piece. It sounds like it might be an edit. If it is, it's a superb one, even if just for attacking something other than disco or soul. O'Neill's cut, "Scribble Me This," lays moody vocals over a languid, chugging beat. It's understated as hell, with all the details lurking in the background, behind the veil of mostly indecipherable singing. This backdrop has an almost orchestral sense of melody, with quiet flutes and strings—or something like them—percolating serenely.
  • Tracklist
      A Peter Power - Sun-K B1 Dara - Scribble Me This B2 Peter Power - Red Roses
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