- The first time I heard Dopplereffekt’s "Pornoactress" was on Tiga’s American Gigolo mix back in 2001. The much-hated now but then-blooming electroclash sound was stirring up mayhem on European and New York dance floors while Fischerspooner, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, Mount Sims and David Carretta were about to go somewhat overground (well, okay, everyone but Carretta, ahah). But ‘Pornoactress’ and other Dopplereffekt tracks had all those electro populist ingredients already: the deadpan fembot vocals, the metronomic and pristine minimalist beats, the Kraftwerk digital love inclinations, it was all there, reminding us that the true roots of the style were anchored in Detroit suburban factories and NOT in Williamsburg lofts owned by dumb transvestites and washed-out club kids.
The Germany-inspired proto-techno of Dopplereffekt, aka Gerald Donald of Drexciya fame, was then only available on some limited 12” on Gigolo Records, but Rotterdam’s own Clone, with their new Classic Cuts series, is trying to get those seminal tracks out of their relative anonymity and back in the limelight with the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ album. Now, don’t get me wrong because it is a fun ride, and by listening to cold cuts such as ‘Cellular Phone’ or ‘Sterilization’ (just to name two: they all sound the same anyway, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way), you can hear the huge impact that the Dopplereffekt aesthetic has had on retro-futurist electro producers such as I-F, Anthony Rother, Bangkok Impact, or Alden Tyrell, but at the same time, you can’t help but feeling this album is more a history lesson and a self-legitimizing release for Clone than something that viscerally had to be taken out of the underground.
In other words, a somewhat important re-release for anal completists and nostalgic digital heads, albeit a bit inconsequential and unnecessary for anyone else.
Tracklist1 Cellular Phone
2 Technic 1200
3 Scientist
4 Rocket Scientist
5 Superior Race
6 Satellites
7 Plastiphilia
8 Plastiphilia 2
9 Voice Activated
10 Speak & Spell
11 Denki No Zuno
12 Die Radiometre
13 Pornoactress
14 Infophysix
15 Pornoviewer
16 Sterilization
17 Gesamtkunstwerk