My My are nothing if not subtle. The same goes for their solo work. One of the few criticisms that was leveled at Lee Jones' excellent full-length last year was its unrelenting consistency in quality and tone. You'd be hard-pressed to pick a highlight because, well, everything stood out if you listened long and hard enough. Nick Höppner's second 12-inch for Ostgut follows this same path: It's an unassuming record that doesn't announce itself as a classic upon first listen, but moves you to continue playing it until you realize you've been playing it longer and harder than anything else.
"Makeover" could have been a lost My My B-side, interlocking a spooked-out pad and a spot of lightly syncopated house drums. It's understated, yet strangely hypnotic in the way that the synth floats along with the drums, pushed along by a see-sawing harmony line that emerges a few minutes in. Lightly tribal it flies in the face of what listeners have perhaps come to expect from Ostgut over the past few releases, falling somewhere between Berghain and Panorama Bar.
"Foundling," on the other hand, is Höppner getting about as epic as his sensibility will let him. It still boils ever so slowly ala My My, but the delayed synth pinging melodies around like sonar punctuated by silence make room in the imagination for this tune to soundtrack a minor crowd meltdown or two. Like Tony Lionni's upcoming track for Ostgut, the rotating synth line is the key, locking you into place figuratively, while your feet will presumably do the rest.
Buy Nick Höppner - Makeover at
  
Tracklist: Nick Höppner - Makeover
 A Makeover
B Foundling
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