- Since he arrived on the scene in 2003, Dominik Eulberg has become such a big name in German dance music that we’ve come to somewhat take him for granted. We all think we know what Dominik Eulberg records sound like, and basically we think they sound like ‘Die Rotbauchunken von Tegernsee’ – rolling along like a steam locomotive, occasionally collapsing in an epileptic fit of percussive nonsense, and pausing once or twice to gaze up at the stars accompanied by ‘heavenly’ swoopy noises.
And that’s not a bad thing to sound like, actually. However, it’s not entirely accurate. As a collection of mostly previously released tracks this album serves as a good retrospective on Eulberg’s career to date, and it’s amazing how varied it is – ‘Die Rotbauchunken’ is here, of course, but so are a great many other tracks with a rather different sound.
‘Adler’, for example, has brassy, haunting melodies in melancholic counterpoint to one another and weird crepuscular sounds that are half rhythm and half melody. It sounds like dark green, densely populated undergrowth illuminated by moonlight. It’s glorious and I can’t believe it was never a bigger tune (with the exception of its inclusion on Tiefschwarz’s ‘Misch Masch’). It sounds nothing like the Eulberg stereotype of chaotic unexpected noises followed by swooning breakdowns, but once you hear it, you know it had to be made by him.
The melodies on ‘Bjorn Borkenkafer’ and ‘Die Alpenstrandlaufer von Spiekeroog’ captivate and send the mind soaring over distant tracts of brooding Nordic conifers. Whereas the stop-start rhythms and interrupted bleeping of ‘Der Hecht im Karpfenteich’ feels more extraterrestrial and disturbing.
In many ways the least impressive tracks on the album are the harder, more driving recent releases - ‘Gasthof “Zum Satten Bass”’, ‘Harzer Roller’ and ‘Der Buchdrucker’. These feel appropriate to today’s dancefloors but lack the depth and trippiness of the earlier tracks.
Of course the other thing we all know about Herr Eulberg is that he’s a nature enthusiast and ‘Heimische Gefilde’ plays up the park ranger aesthetic to the hilt. On the front cover, Dominik mugs to the camera in front of a mixing desk in the middle of a forest, while each track is prefaced by animal noises and what sounds like a lecture in German about a chosen animal.
But marketing ploy as it may be, and critical cliché as it certainly is, the ‘pastoral’ sound that Eulberg has captured is nothing less than impressive. It’s extremely rare to achieve a new aesthetic in techno, but achieve it he has. The dense detail and fractal sensibility of these tracks, with their combination of regularity and randomness, really does feel the way that nature feels.
Tracklist1 Begrüßung Und Buntspecht
2 Afraid Of Seeing Stars
3 Uhu
4 Adler
5 Rote Waldameise
6 Klangteppichverleger Wolle
7 Goldammer
8 Die Alpenstrandläufer Von Spiekeroog
9 Feldgrille
10 Björn Borkenkäfer
11 Eistaucher
12 Der Hecht Im Karpfenteich
13 Gelbbauchunke
14 Die Rotbauchunken Vom Tegernsee
15 Nachtigall
16 Gasthof "Zum Satten Bass"
17 Rauhhautfledermaus Und Großer Abendsegler (1:01)
18 Der Buchdrucker
19 Waldkauz
20 Harzer Roller
21 Stelldichein Des Westerwälder Vogelchores