Ellen Allien - "Thrills"

And to think I was in Miami only last week.

promising!

also: terrific article/interview in the forthcoming Plan B, out next week. Ellen on the new album: "Thrills feels like me from the inside. To turn myself inside out while I make music is one of my favourite hobbies."

False hope is a bitch.

(xpost)

(btw: no German vox)

!
it's like knowing that you too are mortal.

Overall, very pleased.

i agree. the sounds seem very full and layered. infact you kind of have to play it loud to get the right effect.

OTM on the confidence tip. I think that's what i like it so much, it's like she's hitting a stride. It's arguably more ambitious of her to make such a dark, heavy record.

Berlinette always worked like that for me actually. With some serious volume, less of a 'pop' record and more of a crushing dark matrix industrial-tehnnoid beast of a thing. But still totally human, I felt I'd been wanting someone to make a record like that for years without knowing it.

But back to the thread... 'Thrills'. Wow, it's one hell of a left turn of a record! Going to need a lot more listens to properly evaluate. Nabisco didn't reveal what he was excited about above, but I haven't had such nervous anticipation about a follow up since between *'Debut' and 'Post' (!)

*I don't think she's the 'new Björk' fwiw. But she definitly shares a a similar kind of open-minded approach to music. The old one is still fine by me, but I can see where comparisons could be drawn (strong sense of regional identification in their work, working in two languages, vagina + electronic music (lazy), and Ellen has been known to drop her tracks live when DJ-ing but then a lot of people liked that SPT remix. Ahem). Still feels a little tenuous though.

I had a whole couple of pages of thoughts/reactions/feelings scribbled down about just those soulseduction samples! And now I've heard the full thing, well some of it is still applies, but I'd need to add more, change it around some, to describe the new & unexpected parts on here that make me break out into the biggest shit-eating grin ever.

I'm gobsmacked at the almost reckless bravery of it. I mean, she's virtually thrown away with her 'typical' sound set (Stadtkind/Berlinette/Remix Collection) here and doesn't seem bothered about the potential to fail without it this time round. She got new tools and wants to play! :-P

Doesn't sound much like anything else on Bpitch Control at all and it's certainly harder to hear other production influences this time round (Holger Zilske, Sascha Ring etc).

I can't see everyone being pleased, or following her along in this new direction. I get the feeling she's more than ready to accept this though, although 'Cloudy City' and 'She Is With Me' seem like the possible bridging tracks for fans of her earlier stuff.

On a slightly negative note, I think 'Magma' is my least favourite track here so far, feels slightly ugly and it is just me who hates hearing the last track on a record as the single? So glad I got to hear the whole thing early. But then I really wasn't expecting perfection this time out, I know how these things can go (I try and forget how badly 'Army Of Me' prepared me for 'Post'. That record still starts at track two for me.)

But there are many, many things I like about it so far too. Some of this sounds hilariously out-of-control, like Ellen is barely keeping that ARP from bleeping and bouncing out of the studio and into the streets under it's own unstoppable wayward energy.

Her beautiful, subtle yet strong, enigmatic melodies are still here even in all this flowing chaos. I'm not sure how I feel about the comparative lack of vocals so far either, they are there, but often much more direct when used. It still sounds more of a techno thing to me than electro-house, although 'Naked Rain' is kinda deep-house in a way. And 'Down' yeah, is more electro-y. It's just that it's as a whole so much less electro than her previous stuff, and so much weirder, frankly.

If I had to decribe it in less words than I've used so far I'd say: Vaguely Germanic beats meets Giorgio Moroder, LFO & the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Thinking of which I wonder whether I should try to hear that Emporer Machine record from last year if I like this. Seemed to be exploring similar territory.

I'm still leaning towards fucking awesome btw, I might have lost the main thrust of my point in all this chatter ;-) There's stuff going on in this record that absolutely kills.

I think I'm going to go listen some more now :-)

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned 'Washing Machine Is Speaking' yet - that tune is just HUGE.

Agree it is kind of more 'immediate' than Berlinette. It's almost too giving at times, almost ever track having some 'peak' ridiculously intense dissolving-into-bliss moment. I think 'epic' is the word indeed. It's still very grounded though, pushing at the machines really hard. In some ways more brutal than Berlinette, less controlled. I'm reckoning I'll probably end up playing this as much as 'Stadtkind' or 'Remix Collection' but not everyday. It's a bit too exhausting for that.

I'm sure some of the dissapointment here is due to the lack of more typically song-like material. I think it's closer to the aims of the more moving vocal-free parts of Stadtkind, or 'Dresden'. Listening to the samples before I'd quite expected 'She Is With Me' to spin off into something with more content (and to have spanked anything on Berlinette, in fact I'd be happy if this was the last track on 'Thrills' I adore it still). I'm still trying to throw off one or two other early-listening presumptions... mostly because they (I realise now) were all retro-active and coloured by expectations this would still be (in full) more like her previous work.

I'm suspecting this may sound a bit clearer/better mixed when the CD/Vinyl arrives too. I ran encspot over the tracks and got fhg/fastenc at flat 192kbps. My hearing isn't usually that sensitive but these leaks are probably a step down quality wise from LAME VBR and I certainly always put on the original of 'Berlinette' when I had the chance, it made a huge difference to my enjoyment.

I dunno, I'm getting sick of thinking about it now and feel like I'm repeating myself. I've lost the will to polish up the track-by-track review thang I started (I'm not even a journo, i just get a lot out of her music & wish I was better at translating why into print (last bit goes for all the music I like too). It's a fantastic record, very complete & holding up to repeat listens but not exactly an easy 'follow-up' and in some ways flawed, anticlimatic even ('Magma' is okay but no 'Open' by comparison in the best-album-closer-ever stakes) also my expectations had been unattainably high. I mean she basically had me for life at Berlinette!

first part was all jump-up bpitch crowd-rockers a'la 'My Parade', last hour(?) was a smooth glide of weird, dark and interesting (but not cold) electro that just seemed almost magical. 'Cloudy City' could easily have been slotted in there.

But Thrills, it's a bit IDM isn't it? But not exactly really emotive, for me, yet, either.

x-post don't be silly!

But would have needed 1000 words to get my point across.

As far as IDM goes... really? It seems like the least IDM thing she's done recently. For me 'Berlinette' dragged everything I like about that side of electronic music and gave it back heart, soul & a (4/4) pulse, returned it to techno nicely & without compromise. I still think it's incredibly under-appreciated on that level alone. The closest thing I can think of hearing since in a similar vein might be that Robag Whrume album. Which isn't close at all.

'Under-appreciated' to me probably = I won't be happy till I see her records in Virgin Megastore though ;-)

I guess she has recognition in all the places she wants to. And I'd rather see her cross-over on her own terms eventually.

I suspect that she's taken the IDM-ish direction as far as she felt possible for the time being. I didn't feel like the 'Astral' e.p. was as inspired, even as a dancefloor record & 'Bang Bang' was clearly moving further into the realm of things = more complicated/less danceable. Whereas 'Berlinette' got it absolutely spot on.

xpost - The whole field of genre labelling seems a tangled nightmare at the moment, which is also probably healthy, but still I find "Thrills" touching on House/ElectroHouse (and as you've pointed out before maybe descended from her "Fleig Mit" mix)... but no way would I sit it more than 25% in that category. It's quite a stretch for my understanding of what I take the term to represent (lighter, more playful & nimble dance music, less thumping & banging, more shuffling).

xxposts - I've actually heard quite a few mixes go south attempting to get her records in. Except for her own, unsurprisingly!

(check her website charts this month ^_^ )

i've heard 'magma' played out quite a lot (and have played it myself), and it always got a great reaction - it definitely felt like one of the anthems of the summer for me. i haven't heard 'come' but that would definitely get me going, and i think 'washing machine is speaking' and 'the brain is lost' would go down v well too.

o nate otm about the cold/warm duality of the album. i'd agree with susan too - there's something very physical, but also very internalised, about thrills, like maybe it's replacing the blood running through yr veins. susan, i'm curious as to what you don't like about 'washing machine is speaking'? that was my immediate favourite and still one of my highlights.

did anyone else read the great ellen interview in plan b back when this came out? she said lots of interesting things about how she made it.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3838/picture2nb.jpg
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1223/picture0013jr.jpg
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4605/picture0020xf.jpg

There's a list of all the gear she uses at the end of this piece though, which might be interesting (if you understand anything about that stuff, I don't) - http://www.shejay.net/articleDetail.php?articleID=185

Your Body is My Body -- even at 8am on the subway, I'm totally in the hands of that heavy chugging sound mixed with the metal swirlies

Come as some sort of opening, definitely.

Brain is Lost when you're assured that no one in the room is sober or can move quickly.

and I can't remember what the others sound like. Lex, I'll have to listen to Washing Machine again b/c I can't remember why I didn't like it.

i didn't mean how ellen made the album in a technical sense, more her motivation ("to turn myself inside out" etc) and what drives her to make sounds like that. i really love that piece.

I'm somehow more excited about the 'listening tracks' that the rest of it, perhaps because I'd rather this was a total detour than "Berlinette" revisited... but I'll surely be excited about it all the closer it gets to April. Maybe time for a new thread in 2006?

the square! i totally associate that color with Thrills now.

Felt compelled to listen to Thrills all morning. Despite its title Your Body Is My Body is probably my favourite track, for the hum that drifts in at 1:20 and for nailing the album's cold/warm vibe. Surprised at how little it's mentioned in this thread.

And whatever happened to Susan Douglas?

the kiki remix of "your body..." is superb as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UciALMrsE0k

this one was good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfk74eHcxY