- For two producers known for swollen big-eyed bedroom compositions, Dominik Eulberg and Gabriel Ananda seem to join hands only when mania sets in. Both joint Traum releases—2006's Harzer Roller and 2007's Kirschplunder & Jasmin Tee bei Gabriel—twisted the duo's taste for relatively white-tablecloth techno into fingerfood extravaganzas: Louder, sloppier and less restrained. But it's Eucalypse Now! where both producers revel in the outlandish and really let their cuffs drag in the gravy.
The title track spasms and heaves, a jagged series of synth blurts and hectic rhythms that collide and scatter in a circular fashion. But for such a crude floor-based draw, the duo stresses its meticulous composition—jolly flailing with a precise departure time. The crassest, funkiest release of their partnership, it makes the most of its ten-plus minutes, receding into a bouncy charge only to stretch into smeary stretches of melody, collections of sound and small static stitches that artfully coalesce into shape. As it unravels though, something clearly comes unhinged—a moment of sweaty dementia—that's perhaps a little crude in how expressly it searches out its own repeated climax. The B-side, "Bill Kilgore," though just as hyperbolic in its aims, is a damn charming throwback piece of almost-trance that brings a narrative to its ten-minute progression. Evolving from a rippling two-fold synth part, "Kilgore" takes its time to feel out its surrounding, its psychedelic flourishes held in restraint until its mesmerizing intro grips your heels, fit for any journey in need of sound bent at forward pitch to alter the steady blacktop and guardrail lull.
Included for the digital release is Eulberg's Dubcafe mix of the title cut, where he filters quiet café noises—the chattering of china and silverware—into a more subdued, liquidized version of the original. It's little more than novelty act though, a sanding-down of the near-crazed frenzy that makes the original so appealing. But overall, it's Traum's second release of the year—another Eulberg & Ananda no less—and if you can forgive the bunk-ass cover art, you'd do well to find it a warm winter stereo home.
Tracklist A Eucalypse Now!
B Bill Kilgore
Digital: Eucalypse Now! (Eulberg's Dubcafe Mix)