Douglas Greed - KRL

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  • Freude am Tanzen has been producers of "nice house music since 1998." But in the mid-'00s the label started to, for want of a better phrase, strip down its sound. Standard bearers for the imprint around this time were undoubtedly the Wighnomy Brothers, but Douglas Greed, who made his debut on the label in 2005, hinted at an idiosyncratic and fuller sound underpinned by quirky beats. Greed tacitly refuses to be pigeonholed as a dance music artist per se, but still flirts with the genre, cherry-picking and flipping the script when he can. "Bridges Over Babylon" has a grinding tempo and skeletal percussion that coalesces nicely around Kemo's vocal. "Love Is Not A Trickcandle" and "Waiting In Line" are tracks that the shoegazers amongst us can instantly relate to. "Die Scwarze Witwe Liebe" and "Unbemannt" could be seen as making up the numbers, but they serve their purpose as mood setters. "Down There" is a blank, percussive stomp spruced up by off-key bells, while "Morning Gloria" reinforces the general melancholic tone that pervades this collection, as does "Shiver," and "Waiting in Line." Tracks like these sound like they may have been more at home on a label like Infine than FAT. From the photorealistic photograph that makes up the cover art through to the general tone and balance of the album, however, the vibe is more Kompakt than anything else. KRL is an album of electronic pop that is at turns delicate, and ever so slightly pretentious, but all the more interesting for it. There will always be a group that regards such ventures skeptically. The idea of someone who has previously made house and techno branching out for their album is a tale as old as time. But Greed's effort is nothing if not interesting and, coming from him, not a great surprise at all.
  • Tracklist
      01. Pain feat. Mooryc 02. 
Down There
 03. Down Here (Douglas Greed & Pascal Bideau 04. Bridges Over Babylon feat. Kemo 05. Love is Not A Trick Candle 06. Back Room Deal feat. Dehlia de France 07. Die Schwarze Witwe Liebe
 08. Unbemannt 09. Waiting in Line feat Ian Simmonds) 10. Morning Gloria feat. Mooryc 11. 
Hold it Together til Our Friends are Gone 12. Shiver feat. Dehlia de France)
RA