SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER

As one may be able to guess from the title, Schnellertollermeier are back with their fifth album, following the musical path for which they have become known. Andi Schnellmann (electric bass, electric guitar on "Animate Become"), Manuel Troller (electric guitars) and David Meier (drums & percussion) are experimental musicians, who on this album are also using space as a deliberate instrument. There are times when it seems the musicians are recreating the sound of industrial machinery, taking themselves far away from what many people believe to be melodic music, instead taking the listener into places which allows them to think about what is happening in their ears, and asks them to go on a journey.

Each member of the band is tasked with driving the music at different times, always in harmony (or sometimes deliberate disharmony) with the others. Numbers such as "A.o.E.i.n.E.o.A" are immensely powerful, yet at the same time there is little in terms of note density as the guys allow our emotions and some metallic sounds to move us in different directions. This is not easy listening play in the background type of music, but rather it is something which needs to be played on headphones with close attention to everything that is going on. This is far more about the interaction of notes and what they are doing as they resonate as opposed to any individual musician showing off and expecting the listener to be impressed with the skill on show. At times they are highly percussive, at others it is far more languorous, but always there is that space being used as an additional instrument ? this is so removed from compression as to be on a different musical planet altogether. There is room here for everything to breathe, even if that breathing sounds like it is taking place on a production line in a sterile factory somewhere. Highly experimental, definitely interesting.

The Swiss allegedly love order and rules. Schnellertollermeier have a track "RIOT" on their instrumental X album, which is fittingly raw and noisy. Still they apparently have a Swiss trait as some bits of their album are quite math-rocky and organised, particularly the beginning and end, where they slowly develop an initially sharp and monotonic rhythm in an initially quite precise and calculated manner with controlled outbursts, just to let all order go at some point and dive into a sea of sound experiments where quite raw and noisy drums occasionally provide some rhythm or rather the fun of filling the ears with sound. Surely there's something on offer here for the lovers of odd time signatures, but the emphasis here is not on complexity but rather on raw energy and coherence.

The album starts with the 20 minutes title track, which is really an experimental feast, running from structure over dark soundscape and hard free jazz in order to eventually arrive at an intricate guitar oriented part that would have honored most King Crimson albums were it not for the obsessive drums in the very end. Then there's a collection of five shorter tracks each of which elaborates one of their facets. Backyard Lipstick is in the sound experiment territory with a sampled industrial rhythm, Riot and Massacre du Printemps have heavy drum oriented math rock with many changes, Sing For Me is more atmospheric based on slowly evolving sounds without rhythm, and ///\\\/// picks up the slowly evolving rhythm style from the beginning leading to an energetic climax before winding down calmly.

This is an astonishing album from a unique band between math and avantgarde but always rock, with a bit of psychedelic and Kraut mixed in, sometimes not really easy to listen to, which takes its major attraction from the mix between organisation and free improvisation with some hard drumming, sometimes sharp and sometimes rough, between the two. 4.2 stars.