With cool, fancy remixes for eminent folks like Kelis, Goldfrapp, The Rapture and Spektrum attracting interest from a fairly broad range of quarters, it’s unlikely there was ever going to be a shortage of ideas or guest appearances on this bright, eager and frighteningly fresh second album ‘Eat Books’ from Berlin’s freak soul-brothers Schwarz. And true to expectations: there ain’t no shortage. Fair enough, a number of the tracks tip a wink in the direction of electro-pop shufflers like Heaven 17 (‘Troubled Man’ with Ed Laliq and ‘Far East’) but on the whole this is densely eclectic affair literally teeming with roots, sources and threads.
Moving way beyond their demonstrable love of house the album twists its kaleidoscopic cylinders around a collapsing colour pot of techno, electro and post-punk beats and riffs. Freaking it up on terrific album opener, ‘Warning Siren’ is The Rapture’s Matty Safer hamming it up like Jack White in a guitar-shop with a spoonful of acid at his disposal, the buzz-saw glam mayhem of Chikinki’s lustful ‘Wait and See’ as well as their strangely Peter Gabrielesque lamb lies down on chemical imbalances, ‘Artificial Chemicals’ plus a lush yet funky guesting from Everything But The Girl Sweetheart, Tracey Thorn on the slippery, visceral ‘Damage’.
Any sort of menagerie is likely to yield as many red herrings as continuities and this is no exception. But what it lacks in cogency, it more than makes up for in style. Blessed be the God of Scchwarzael…