Innenleben

I've written many times about Exeter's Mighty Force, a label reborn in 2019 and since then responsible for a run of great electronic albums and EPs from a huge roster of artists including David Harrow, Long Range Desert Group, Reverb Delay, M- Paths, D3, Dylab, Fluffy Inside, Myoptik, Boxheater Jackson, Yorkshire Machines, KAMS, Paddy Thorne, Golden Donna and more besides. 

At the end of October SubDan returned with a full length album, Innenleben. All ten tracks, as well as the album itself, have German titles. It opens with Denkmuster (translation 'thought patterns' or 'mindset'), a setting out of the stall, ticking hi hats, bleeps and bass, lovely machine repetition- there's a laser focus on Innenleben, absolute precision and timing, the occasional human voice dropped in, but there's also a lot of feeling and a lot of soul. 

Liebesgefluster (translation, love whispering- and don't the Germans have a word for everything) is a technoid joy, warm and minimal, the synth hook bouncing around, robotic voices just within earshot muttering sweet nothings, and the drums and bass gathering pace. 

This music, streamlined, linear and all forwards momentum, always puts me in mind of travel and transport (something Kraftwerk picked up on half a century ago with Autobahn and Trans- Europe Express)- it's the sound of gliding through miles of countryside after dark on the rails or under the sodium lights on the motorway, the white lines shooting past, miles falling away. 

Translating the song titles is a joy in itself. There is Gedankenfrei (thoughts are free) and Vorstellungskraft (imagination). At the end there is the tile track, Innenleben (inner life), a beatless and weightless ambient techno affair with loops that repeat until dissolving into nothing. Lovely stuff. get it at Bandcamp.