Stefan
Schwander, the man behind German act Antonelli Electr, has been around
for a couple of years, and Click is the follow up to his first album,
Me, The Disco Machine.
According to the label’s
press release, the most important attribut of this album is its modernity.
Unfortunately, the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in the early
nineties. Effectively, while pretending to look forward, Schwander displays
all the attributes of early house: the rigid and repetitive tunes, the
tiny piano sounds, the synthetic strings… And he is pretty good at it too.
Takeuchi, a piano-led track, is rather good, evoking early acid
house, while Same Player, Again & Again, with its funky bass,
is a smashing number, although slightly too slow to really kick off. The
minimalism with which Schwander treats his music is most obvious in Time
Destroying Machine and Chrome Vanadium, a track that would fit
marvellously in a Mark Broom mix. The high-speed funky piano of The
Needle & The Record is anecdotic, while, Dragon, the closing
track, is certainly the best moment of this otherwise slightly dull record.
As a tribute to the early
house and acid era, Click works most of the time. Unfortunately,
Antonelli Electr sees this as the future of electronic music, and, with
this statement, is in big danger to be pushed aside by the true creators
of today.
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