Review - Rückwärts Im Uhrzeigersinn

Ever since the likes of Carl Craig and Surgeon sampled the infamous break from “Los Niños Del Parque”, the impact and influence of Berlin’s early 80’s EBM scene has slowly but surely grown as a significant part of the many-pieced jigsaw puzzle that makes up the history of European dance music. Although the city is known now for dub techno and the watery thin minimal music that seems so popular, stark synthpop and dark electronics, dubbed more recently as “Coldwave” has always had a place there. Das Drehmoment, started by Daniela Schwarz in 2002, has released a compilation of varying styles of electronic pop as it were from producers around Europe.

It’s a mixed bag of styles to say the least, but apart from a couple of rather generic electro tracks, there are some real pop nuggets on this, not least from Roland Faber, who made his name as an anonymous garage producer in London for 2 decades before turning to make the music he loves under guises such as Starcluster. He contributes 2 tracks, both rich in pop sensibilities. Syn produce for me the higlight with “That’s You”, a fantastic Killing Joke-esque EBM number, and there’s a soaring dark disco track by Polygamy Boys called “Man against Man”. I’ll let your imagination do the rest with that one. DJ Overdose aka Dream Dose contributes a straight up Italo theme and there’s some excellent synthpop from French outfit Makina Girgir. If you’re looking for an alternative Berlin-orientated sound that highlights something of an underground scene throughout Europe with strong connections to the Rotterdam/Hague axis, then I highly recommend this. 

Toby Frith

Das Drehmoment Website

Das Drehmoment on Youtube