- A darkly-tinged exploration of melody and ambience.
- Last March, Frankfurt jack of all trades Roman Flügel turned up on Gerd Jansen's Running Back with the Garden Party 12-inch. Flügel had put out a couple of records on the label under his Roman IV alias in the early '10s, but since then Running Back has slowly moved closer to the space where the main stage and the underground meet—churning out big tunes that retain just enough quirk for the heads. In Ryan Keeling's review of that record, he wrote, "No clairvoyance is needed to say that Roman Flügel's 'Garden Party' will enjoy a happy, prosperous future." Listening back to that summery scoop of Italo and disco flavored gelato a year later is like listening to a dispatch from another dimension. It's very likely that "Garden Party" would have been an anthem, gracing every boat party and Track ID Facebook group. Instead, it remains archived in the database of the Summer That Never Was.
At first pass, it seems Flügel is in a totally different headspace on Eating Darkness, his first LP since 2018. The title is not exactly subtle. And make no bones about it, there is plenty of darkness on this record, including on the dance floor tracks. The haphazard snares on "Chemicals" fall like the blade of a guillotine. Add in the witch-house reminiscent chords and it's a track that could have been slotted in on last year's Salem reunion record. "Cluttered Homes" is claustrophobic with layers of hiss and creeping acid lines and there's a post-punk feel to "Wow." The major key organ crescendos throughout are dampened by the bassline that marches alongside with dread.
Setting aside these shades of black, the album is far from monochrome. There are no festival-ready anthems, but "Jocks and Freaks" does capture some of Garden Party's feel-good vibes. The soaring melodies have an Italo feel, even if the percussion feels like it is always playing catch-up. My favorite moments on the record are when Flügel looks back to his recently-reissued '90s project, The Primitive Painter, his duo with Jörn Elling Wuttke. Like the tunes from that 1994 record, the opening and closing tracks on Eating Darkness feel cautiously optimistic, shifting slightly to midnight blue. They unwind, slow and gentle, ever-so-slightly brightening the album's prevailing mood.
These ambient sketches offer a bit of emotional catharsis—they're focused compared to some of the other tracks when Flügel loses focus. The melancholy piano line and skittering broken beat that start "Eternal" are lovely, but the sheer mass of clashing melodies that enter the song overwhelm it, sounding like Four Tet remixing Explosions In The Sky. "Locked" is also on the edge, its cheery chord progression falling on the wrong side of sentimental.
But maybe these tastes of the melodramatic are a necessary palette cleanser for Flügel as he opens the shades and takes stock of the future. I tend to gravitate towards Flügel's productions at either the hypnotic and tracky or fully experimental ends of the spectrum. This album doesn't really fit either description, and in that way it's one of the more rewarding Flügel full-lengths, filled with surprises and little melodic touches you don't hear in a lot of his other work.
Tracklist01. Magic Briefcase
02. Chemicals
03. Wow
04. Jocks and Freaks
05. The Best Is Yet To Come
06. Cluttered Homes
07. Eternal
08. Locked
09. Charles