If Apparat isn't everything that's good about electronic music at the moment, he's certainly a reminder that it can be meaningful and emotional. Not the sweaty, pilled-up emotion of Soulwax or Justice, but the heart-string plucking kind; the kind that's usually the preserve of a well scored slice of premium cinema.
He started with Orchestra of Bubbles, a collaboration with Ellen Allien in 2006 that hinted at the human behind the techno beat; placing a subtle question mark over the typically soulless nature of electronic music. Then came the solo Walls in 2007, experimenting with downtempo and providing moments of sheer beauty (Useless Information, Arcadia).
Most recently was the collaboration with Modeselektor; Moderat. Initially I was worried the collaboration might see him straying from this living, breathing roboticism and into the more disposable aspects of his collaborators, but it seems the opposite was the case. What the collaboration brought in repetition and structure seemingly amplified the contrast... the industrial and the mechanical, and the emotive.
A friend recently recounted the following; it was a rainy, artistically productive day, and a group of them were sat smoking weed and drawing. Conditions, as Flight of the Conchords stated, were perfect, my friend put on LP highlight Out of Sight and returned to his drawing. When he looked up, he noticed an Australian, shedding a solitary tear.
If you can find it, there's a deluxe edition of the LP that has a second disk with a visual accompaniment, a sort of minimal series of music videos. Again, a hint at how to progress given the dismal future of albums, music videos and budgets in general.
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