PRICE:
$25.50
LOW STOCK LEVEL
ARTIST
TITLE
Frozen Dancers
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
HYR7 123LP HYR7 123LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
1/7/2014

Four years after their debut full-length on Distraction Records, close Hell Yeah family members Tempelhof are back on the label with a brand-new album, Frozen Dancers. Italians Luciano Ermondi and Paolo Mazzacani are known for their hugely musical electronica; stuff that is rich with plenty of instruments and alive with shoe-gaze texture as evidenced by previous EPs . The new nine-track album once again proves the duo to be in a league of their own when it comes to crafting spacious and emotive sound spaces. Things start with the trilling synths and intricate electronics of "Drake," which swells from golden ambiance into a bustling brew of organic and analog texture. From there, things get dark and sad, with the heavy minor chords of "Monday is Black." "Change" then sees the duo play with broken-beat patterns and urban moods of the sort you might find in a Burial or Four Tet set. Metal drums clatter a spare pattern as heavyweight bass props the whole thing up. From there the mood and rhythm of the album continues to ebb and flow in a way that makes it essential to be listened to in one full sitting. There are anxious and fractious vocals on "She Can't Forgive" that get paired off with torturous synth lines and unsettled arpeggiated melodies. It's truly heart-wrenching stuff, but there is also more club-oriented fare like "The Dusk," which sounds like deconstructed Chicago house rebuilt as ethereal, synth-heavy electronica. You won't hear a familiar pattern of recognizable samples anywhere throughout this album -- it is a truly unique and beguiling mélange of many different sound sources, genre influences and human emotions and is one that confirms Tempelhof to be one of the finest duos in their realm.