To Rococo Rot, the trio of Stefan Schneider and brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok, arrived just over a decade ago at the point where digital precision and instrumental abstraction were opening up new directions in contemporary music.
[audio:08 – to rococo rot – kolner brett 7.mp3]
They have always been an innovative band, existing somewhere on the musical verge between electronica and postrock. But their new album “Speculation” is one of their warmest sounding records to date and confirms their status as pioneers of the electro-acoustic crossover.
Even now, a good ten years later, the members sometimes refer to the music they make together as ‘a project’, as if rooting it all down in something more permanent could affect their forward motion.
To Rococo Rot have in the past kept things interesting through collaborations with artists like D (Darryl Moore), I-Sound (a New York DJ), Alexander Balanescu, The Pastels and St. Etienne, and with the music each of them makes outside the group, in Tarwater (Roland Lippok), Mapstation (Stefan Schneider), Robert Lippok’s collaboration with Barbara Morgenstern for instance. But their strength is really their own relationship, in the way that their unique group plays together; in its physicality and the intuitive ways the members adapt to each others playing.
To Rococo Rot / Speculation / Short Film
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=w9W_a9CN2f0
A special visual insight into the making of the album, including footage of new songs recorded at Scheer with Jochen Irmler from Faust.
Their early albums, Veiculo and The Amateur View, spoke in the future imperfect tense, highly complex but concentrated sound happenings.
On Speculation the language has changed. This is a record that celebrates uncertainty. Driven by the sound of fingers on instruments, pushing and weaving between the electric pulse, Speculation bathes in a midpoint between propulsion and letting go. According to Schneider, Faust’s studio had an obvious effect on this new direct approach:
“The atmosphere at the Faust studio was really special as it is located in a remote rural region of southern Germany. The technical set up at the studio is very basic and regular in a good way. So we could record our music almost like a band playing a live show in order to achieve maximum brilliance and plasticity.”
“Jochen Irmler of Faust would join us from time to time or he would just start to play something on his self built organ which we would accompany. The sound of his organ is absolutely unique and sharp and therefore fitted very much to the roughness of our recordings. Maybe that is what we call the amateur view.”
And indeed Jochen Irmler of the band Faust and the Klangbad label & festival in Scheer will also be joining the band live on stage for the Berlin date of their extensive European tour.
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To Rococo Rot LIVE
Saturday / 10.04.2010
Festsaal Kreuzberg / Skalitzerstr. 130 / 10999 Berlin/Kreuzberg
www.myspace.com/torococorot | www.dominorecordco.com
