Karl Bartos
Communication

It could only be granted to a former Kraftwerk member to release such a Kraftwerk-like album in 2003...
I'm talking about "Communication" by Karl Bartos, the latest solo album from the ex-Düsseldorf robot.
The entire operation, in fact, harks back to the stylistic elements traced by the band that invented electronic music.
Let's start, of course, with the packaging of the album in question and therefore with the graphic part that presents a very minimalist black/white concept based on sign-like icons, the artist's name, and the title at the top written in a hermetic and Central European "Eurostile" font.

The album opens with a bang with a track that we could define...EBM? Yes, "I'm the Message" really sounds like it! Strong with a grandiose and Teutonic bassline à la DAF and killer sound incursions and riffs like Front 242. It's curious to mention names, considering that all the major electronic bands have drawn from the bionic breasts of the Kling Klang Studios, so nothing is destroyed... on the contrary, legitimate fathers like Karl Bartos come back in the open to claim their authority! The contrast between extremes (black and white indeed) also seems to dominate the audio contents of the album itself. Even though the compositions oscillate between electronic experimentation and pop songs, the very high quality of the production, mostly curated by Bartos himself, remains unchanged.
This balance, which was also Kraftwerk's "mission," is pushed by Bartos into a clearly "Easy" dimension, referring to the fascinating and captivating sound of Depeche and many SynthPop wave favorites. In this regard, track 2, "15 Minutes Of Fame," which is being promoted as the leading single, suspiciously recalls New Order’s Blue Monday; so, are the founding fathers really allowed to do everything?

Track four, "Life," represents the essence of eighties Technopop, sounding like the beautiful "The Telephone Call" by Kraftwerk—the only song by the band sung solely by Bartos—and thus is a great pop song. "Camera," my favorite, starts with a beautiful bass line very much like "We Are the Robots," but with a very effective fixed kick-drum double time. Looking at the lyrics, the verse «The Camera Is Gonna Be Your Best Friend» seems directed at the protagonist of the famous "Das Modell" by Kraftwerk, almost marking a conceptual link between Bartos' album and Kraftwerk's "The Man-Machine." Thus, it's evident in the lyrics of "Communication" that there is continuity with the Kraftwerk aesthetic: the themes of technology, progress, and social relations form the medium through which the artist communicates with the audience using sometimes robotic voices (with Vocoder set to the famous sound patented by Florian Schneider) and sometimes purely melodic singing as in "Life." The track "Cyberspace" is a nod to the Matrix-like virtual reality, which I personally found out of place.

And here we are at the conclusions:
I believe this album will sound anachronistic to many listeners (...like "the same old '80s stuff, but wake up, we're in the 2000s!"), yet for those who continue to attentively draw from the masters of electronic music, this album will represent an excellent artifact from an artisan who learned the craft in the most prestigious TechnoPop workshop.