In the early to mind 1990s electronic music looked set to take over the world: Genres were splitting and mutating for fun, and each new Aphex Twin LP opened up thousands of acres of new and green musical land for other less talented types to settle and colonise. In short, the future looked very bright indeed...
But then everything went very badly wrong, ‘Brit Pop’ happened and the scene went retro. The band was back. Playing the guitar was ‘in’ and there was nothing that got you a record deal quicker than saying “We love The Beatles, 4 lads in a band, C’MNNOOOONNNN!!!!! Blah, blah, fucking blah…"
Meanwhile electronic music became formulaic and corrupt - It’s innovators smelt the capitalist coffee and either snorted as much of it as they possibly could, or ran a mile into some kind of self-imposed and contrite obscurity to make music for themselves and no-one else..
It was a weird time. Without any kind of warning, or apparent reason, the beautiful green pastures of Electronic Utopia were inexplicably and desperately abandoned in favour of a move to some shitty small rainy town where no-one had any fucking idea what to do of an evening except hang around the rotting squalid pub and complain about their jobs….
Well boss, I think I have good news...That was then and now the circle is coming back around: Bands such as Hot Chip are taking on the pop mantle with innovative electronic gusto and acts like Trentemoller are painting up a storm in the background.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve no idea who Trentemoller are, neither do I know a thing about their working methods. But if I were to take a wild guess, I’d say they might have family history in fine textiles, because this record sounds like it’s been produced in the smoothest of silk factories.
Starting as it means to go on with the superb Take Me Into Your Skin, the record proceeds to whistle along in a strange yet calm haze of beats and strokes, like some kind of living musical machine line to the future. Yes boss, this is another record like Hot Chip’s The Warning, which has that natural feel that’s so often lacking in electronic music – a sense of the human, some roughness, but smooth and just plain nice roughness….
Unlike Hot Chip, this isn’t pop music. Indeed it’s closer to classical music in structure. It’s filmic. It’s musical wallpaper. It's....well, it’s difficult to describe thoroughly, but if you imagine the soul of Detroit techno, the variation and complexity of anything Warp have offered, and the warmth and natural charm of the Boards of Canada then you’ll have something close to Trentemoller.
The most remarkable thing with The Last Resort is that this 2 disc issue is more than 2 hours long. Sure you can buy the single disc and halve that, but I’d advise you to get the double, because though 999 out of 1000 times such length is an awful indulgence, Trentemoller are worth it.
So in short, The Last Resort is a great record – If it was a book, it would be written by Tom Wolfe: On the surface about 300 pages too heavy, but in reality a beautiful and smooth glide though life.
Enjoy!!
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