Heads up. Here’s something you don’t get every day. Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2 is a compilation of some fourteen remakes of songs by the increasingly resonant Kraftwerk – the pioneers of electronica. Anyone who knows a little bit about Kraftwerk will be familiar with the band’s seminal Trans Europe Express album (1977). On Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2, Kraftwerk classics are reinterpreted by artists from Slovenia. Some of the artists are newcomers, others have been around since the Kraftwerk days – for example the industrial pioneers Laibach who regularly quote Kraftwerk as one of their key influences.
Why now after eleven years? Why not?
The album includes a track by Siddharta, the biggest Slovenian rock act who sell-out stadiums at home and have recently signed a deal with Ministry of Sound (as their first ever rock band. More pleasing for me, however, is the darkly prodigious, cello scraping gothic of Rozmarinke’s take on ‘Radioactivity’ and the squirming electric pulse of OST’s drum n’bass inflected ‘Metropolis’.
Krafty.