Ellen Allien
Thrills

Seduction from the obscene pulpit of a mechanical console. Flesh mystified by metallic post-techno rhythm. Embraces of faint rumbling beats. 
Ellen Allien's music, pioneer of the German underground electronic scene, always manages to remain interesting and identifiable thanks to her scenic peak, capable of making her techno-minimal or glitch moments listenable even in the dark, in the deepest silence. It's emotion, this continuous embrace of alien sounds, it’s a thrill. A shiver thrown into the night, like a candy thrown into the void.

Dancefloor music with a soul, flowing like a fast train, and it narcotizes the brain. Between the temples, the eclipses. Sunsets. Stars. Twilights. Abysses.

Seduction, love, perdition in a track like "My Body Is Your Body", a contact point between electronic experimentation and a very easy listening vocal, reduced to just two words repeated in a loop. Terrors with a horror twist in a remarkably notable track like "Washing Machine Is Speaking", visceral beating and synth illusions into the void. A punch in the face.

The beauty that an elliptical and suspended track like the opener "Come" unleashes, whispering and enveloping business card for the limbo, which then drags into the maddened volcanoes of "The Brain Is Lost", a cult object for clubbing, dazzling in its wonderful desire to live and unleash, becoming terribly contagious, but with class. "Down", almost 8-bit, drags into acid and colorful territories, breaking the stable bridge between reality and dream. And suddenly, it almost becomes pop. 

"Ghost" seems to anticipate some passages of the synth used by Portishead in "Third" and evokes nostalgia and disappointments, without ever pronouncing or asserting itself. The restless wrapping of chases and desolate fields, of oceans painted black and peaks disconnecting with electronic destructions. Almost lullabies, almost noise. Tomb-like atmosphere and no-return. "Cloudy City", which starts with a bang and never lets go, and the irresistible closing of "Magma", excellent track that dares with style and originality, managing to both intrigue and involve.

A small great record, that is the emblem of one of the most interesting phenomena of the contemporary electronic scene. Capable, even, of sparking some shivers from the atonal electronic touches and the caustic coolness of the voice. Certainly, it does not leave one indifferent. Must recuperate.