KARL BARTOS - COMMUNICATION

After so many years contributing to Kraftwerk's genius, and then making his Electric Music project (with a very good first album in the Kraftwerk's style, "Esperanto", at the begining of the 90s, and a completely missed second album, too much "britpop" for the synthetic music's fans at the end of this decade), Karl Bartos shows us he's quite an energetic 50 years old. "Communication" is a kind of come-back to his origins, Bartos has understood that his genius is more linked to the use of machines than the simple creation of pop melodies. We think of "Esperanto" and the fascination of the German musician for all the communication's technics (photography, internet, virtual reality, etc.); we can't help ourselves to think of Krafwerk in the essential use of the vocoder and the numerous synthetic sounds, the whole wrapped up in candid, "hippy" harmonies. But, unlike the new Krafwerk's album, greeted for its coherence and its modesty, "Communication" is a real pop album, technopop in the meaning the Düsseldorf's quartet gave it in its good years (from "Neon Lights" to "Electric Café" and "Computer World"). Therefore more sexy and more exciting. The melodies are catchy, the rhythms are dancing on almost all the tracks and even some sounds equal the current best techno productions (we think of Orbital - which remixes I'm the Message on an eponymous EP- as well as LFO, who dedicated its first album to... Kraftwerk). We remember that Karl Bartos sensibly collaborated with Bernard Sumner of New Order on Electronic's second album, and that he undeniably kept the habit of singing like him, which is confirmed on tracks like 15 Minutes of Fame (an EP already released last year), Electronic Apeman and Life. As for the rest, and if we except the rather bland, almost instrumentals Interview and Another Reality, Karl Bartos offers us eight pop-electronic tracks, very robotic, cold and warm at the same time, subtle and above all ageless. It was worth waiting for.

TRACKLISTING:

1. The Camera
2. I m The Message
3. 15 Minutes Of Fame
4. Reality
5. Electronic Apeman
6. Life
7. Cyberspace
8. Interview
9. Ultraviolet
10. Another Reality

Download