A Slaves Commitment Applescal

This album is the first one we have released after just one 12” on Traum by the artist Applescal. This artist from the Netherlands was voted producer of the year in the Netherlands (Grote Prijs Dec 08), but more than that we were attracted by the approach of releasing a full long player by a very young talented person who has more to say than a dozen 12”s could actually carry. So we eventually said f..ck and took on all tracks and gave it a go. Pascal himself has chosen a track listing we could not disagree with... he combines here electronica with dance tracks with grunge... and has created tracks that sound as it they were recorded by live bands... We detect a lot of explosive juvenileness in this album, a quality which always has been so essential for albums so special. Their heroes are not Richie Hawtin or Ricardo Villalobos but Apparat and Extrawelt. Here grunge meets melody and we might call it the second wave of indie electronics. The CD starts off with the beautiful track “The history of love”, that feels as if the world was twisted in slow motion. “Nottingham hobbits” transports and extends a similar emotions whereas “Ugly but nasty” introduces nasty acid baselines and reminds us of his 12” track “Monster” released on Traum. “In the mirror” has a bit more of a band approach, sounds like and The Cure or My Bloody Valentine or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry— it carries this “ghostly” atmosphere and works with chords and feedbacks . ”Music for her ears” is the ambient piece of music on the CD... a bit of a sad and a melancholic track, that connects somehow to modern electronica with piano. “I cant stand” also works with ambience but dives into a sort of shuffle beat to rock away. “The forms of abstract life” is a masterpiece of electronica, it seems to visualise the beauty of flowers and nature in an intimate way. “The red dress” is a noise interlude, psychedelic, alienated and strange. ”Funk and fc” is a grinding acid track that starts quite and works with a classic build up getting frantic and noisy. “Sjeesh” a remix of a track by the Dutch band Local Daddies. Inspired by the vocals Applescal used the vocals and bass of the original but changes everything else around it, made it a totally new track and gave it a twist which puts the track more in the region of Coldplay and Portishead. Applescal closes the CD with ”Reeeer”. A melodic and comic like track that makes us think of a large fish swallowing everything which crosses it?s way. Colourful and happy-sad, well... the holy Aphex Twin comes alive in this one.