- This new collaboration between Unit 4's Ralf Beck and former shock rocker Sebastian Philipp from Noblesse Oblige is named after a DAF tune. In the song, a group of robbers find a prince, lost in the woods, and take his possessions. 'Der Elektische Reiter' is the sound of the dark woods, a track so consumed with creating a vibe that it nearly forgets to do anything else.
In the world of cosmic disco, that ain't a bad thing. The beat drops immediately, lazily taking its place alongside Cosmic Metal Mother's 'I Think…' in the stakes for the "simplest beat of the year" award. Soon, a reverberating guitar joins in from both sides of the stereo field, slightly out-of-time with itself, while a disembodied moaning rises up every so often to keep things "spooky". Thing is, like 'I Think…', the stripped song works. (The actual "Stripped Version" on the B-side seems built for dancefloors, while the original is presumably for the home-listening crowd.) Halfway through, I'd almost be tempted to put my hands up when the new guitar line enters in, if the damn thing didn't make me feel so lethargic.
Further on the flip, 'Torpedovogel' is pure cosmic quirk, a song seemingly taken from Beck's Odelay sessions that never had vocals added. A drunken drum-set plays along to a two-note guitar line, while synthesizers ply away in the background adding atmospherics. You'll find this in plenty of online mixes in the future, I'm sure, but don't try to dance to it, lest you end up looking like a…well…whatever the hell a torpedovogel is, I suppose.
TracklistA1 Der Elektische Reiter
B1 Der Elektrische Reiter (Stripped Version)
B2 Torpedovogel