- The long playing techno album remains a difficult trick to pull off, but with ‘Bittersüss’ M.I.A. has given us one of 2007's early contenders. Not to be confused with the London grime darling, Michaela Grobelny’s M.I.A. is known for producing a particularly emotional brand of minimal techno, with releases on Traum, Trapez and Treibstoff and remixes for the likes of Basteroid, The Modernist and Steve Barnes' Process. She and Falko Broksieper founded the Sub Static label in 2000 before relocating from Cologne to Berlin in 2004, and it is the fusion of these cities' sounds - Berlin edginess with Cologne pulling-of-heartstrings - that makes ‘Bittersüss’ such a bittersweet success.
The cover finds her thigh-deep in water, naked but for some cables draped elegantly around her torso. Sprouting from these are a number of water lilies, which perhaps allude to the organic warmth that flow through her elegant programming. I'd like to have argued against this sort of image adorning work by female producers - she's surely catering to every male technoist's fantasy (mine included) - were it not so illustrative of the music within: with her voice floating - both deadpan and desperate - through most tracks, she's revealing more of herself than most minimal artists; references to water abound, and her choice of synth sounds is as bright and fresh as the flowers blooming around her. Oh, and her programming is as svelte as her designer bobbed hairdo.
After 'Self Control' - a brief intro of brushed gongs and whispers around lightly thumped drums - 'Can't Find You' hits the floor with some hesitation, gasps and dulcimer strumming battling shakers before more strident tone rows of Lawrence bleeps march in. 'Safe Night' is more urgent, its lurching rhythm holding drunken synth patterns in check before a straighter melody pushes them aside. 'Can you tell me why?' M.I.A. asks in 'Cold City', which splits into reverbed multiples with hints of the moans of deep house divas. It's dance music for drunken romantics, too miserable to cut loose yet desperate for distraction, like Superpitcher shaded in pastels.
Bird calls, whispers, deep pads and 'Brutalga Square' rattles all pile into 'Swoon', which somehow manages to remain uncluttered, coming off like a Fairmont track. Elsewhere M.I.A. takes in pseudo no-wave electro ('Under the Bridge'), skittish My My house ('Wild Ponys') and ambling electro-pop ('Bittersüss'), all delivered with a nocturnal moodiness that is never less than entrancing. The final, hidden track looks back to Weimar-era cabaret, with plucked upright bass and vocals so echo-drenched they resemble a female Alan Vega performing in a Twin Peaks nightclub. Bittersüss is filled with such surprises, with Grobelny masterful at combining microhouse buoyancy with more sensual - and sinister - moods and structures.
Tracklist1 Self Control
2 Can't Find You
3 Cold City
4 Safe Night
5 Swoon
6 Under The Bridge
7 Wild Ponys
8 Chateau Mandourelle
9 Bittersüss
10 So I Felt
11 Datalover
12 Cologne Memories
13 Fragile