Einzelkind - Out with a Bang

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  • Cuban-born and Frankfurt-based duo Arno Völker and Miguel Ayala use the Einzelkind moniker for more tight-belted house forays, saving their most brazen samba heat for their recently inaugurated La Peña white label series. "Out with a Bang" marks a return to Kindisch following a handful of releases on Get Physical and Playhouse. On the A-side, the Latin grooves the two absorbed via cultural osmosis are largely subterranean. The title track, a house-y attention-grabber, is jazzed and perky when it's in full swing. A bubbling, two-part vocal sample and a dry piano stab trade off over a crisp, scrubbed rhythm section. The FX send channel is used here as a tool of seduction, teasing and deferring full payoff. The sample is first only briefly aired out before it's submerged again in the filtered depth. When it resurfaces, the one-note piano has since opened into a riff, and the two pop in a fresh, carbonated bounce. Even though it sounds nice enough, though, these and other house signifiers feel a bit forced: the perfunctory conga accent in particular sticks out in the way that an ill-chosen necktie might at a formal gathering. "No News Good News" rides a deep 808-tom boom, the support for a more barren, techish soundscape where wisps of white noise peak out shyly from behind the drums. There's a midway plot twist as the beats drop out from underneath a lonely, modest synth ring, which erupts without warning into an acidic flurry before getting swallowed again by the swift tom rhythm. If the A-siders seem more geared towards speaking the tongue of their host country, the flip is a direct telegraph to the motherland. It's not hard to figure out the intentions of a track called "AKA the groove," and sure enough, it's enough of a rolling beat that the tune performs just as well at 33 as at 45. Play it fast, and you ride a simmering, shaker-dense samba pulse touched with bonky hand percussion and girly gasps. Take it slow, and you enter a hazy Amazon clearing where shaman drummers have traded their Reason kits for monkey bones and hollow logs.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Out With A Bang A2 No News Good News B AKA The Groove
RA