This is Camera's fifth album in the bands ten-year career and has as usual a new line-up as Camera Main man Michael Drummer is the only original member left and yes he plays the drums.
The album opens with Kartoffelstampf that seems to take Nico’s Drama Of Exile as it's jumping off point musically, with hints that they may indeed be a little bit Fearfully In Danger, this is propulsive driving instrumental Krautrock with the synth noises going in and around the guitar and drum core.
Alar Alar is a sort of digi-dub space age epic with the merest hint of middle eastern promise wrapped around the languorous central motif to make this sound like it would be perfect to hear while driving through Wuppertal or somewhere similar.
Prosthuman/App Time is far more laid back and chilled out with a synth only intro before the drums come gently in to help keep things bucolic and restrained as they wonder what the next app they will need to install is, until near the end when it bursts into a breakneck part that is very Bo Hannson circa El-Ahrairah.
Uberall Teilchen/Teilchen Uberall has a looped vocal phrase that all sorts of weird synth noises are built around as this tune swirls and builds and as it progresses the vocal reminds me more and more of the Japanese parts of David Bowie's It's No Game as it feels like you should be negotiating a labyrinth while listening to this.
Freundschaft is back to the sort of Drama of Exile template but with added odd keyboard and synth bits this feels quite laid back but not at all relaxing.
El Lay may or may not be about laying the tracks for the El or underground railway in Chicago, or even the one in Berlin that would be more fitting, or it could just be another cool piece of electronica perfect for racing along an Autobahn at 80 MPH too.
Schmwarf is as close to a proper song as this album gets in that it has normal vocals surrounded by synth stabs and a propulsive beat clashing with the guitar splintering shards of sound and moving around the speakers like your being rolled down a hill in a zorb and this is the soundtrack as you gather pace.
A2 should probably be listened too while totally off your face on way too much weed while driving way too fast up the A2 from Gillingham towards London as you let the synths transport you somewhere else and gently hallucinate as the beat wraps itself round your brain and all sorts of weird things start to happen.
Chords 4/Kurz Vor sounds like something off the soundtrack to Berlin 1983 it has a classic Krautrock sound and makes me want to go and eat cakes on the Kurfurstendamm again this tune would be perfect for some people watching.
The album closes with Harmonite that adds some scratchy turntablism into the dense synth mix as the drums keep everything pulsing along nicely as this along with the rest of this album for me sounds like perfect late night driving music.
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