Nein! - Fashionable Living

There's never any of the typical pomp and self-promotional circumstance when it comes to Sophisticated Professionals. 

Every few months, this trio of musical masqueraders embody a different dynamic genre or style, and release an album of songs with a new/different band name where they take on the distinct characters typical exhibited by iconic players the aesthetic tropes of whatever-said-genre or realm they inhabit, be it country, thrash metal, or in this case, krautrock! 

All of the songs on Fashionable Living, the debut album from Nein, were performed by "machine..." Not sure if it's "a" machine, or "the" machine, or if it's the "man machine," but I'm just going on the liner notes. The main players are known as Dolphus Dietrich, and Wolfgang Weismueller. 

Minimalist grooves from a korg drum machine, curly-cue melodies threading across those moog-sounding synthesizers, the clattery clasp of those ersatz beats, and sing-spoken esoterica elucidating the enticements of fashion, the mundane majesty of shopping centers, the overwhelming options of fine dining, or the underappreciated benefits of a timeshare. 

This is a daydreamy, musical monorail ride sliding across circuitry tracks and passing by sleek, digital semiconductor stations, all neon-sparks and futuristic patterns, form-fitted everything and angular dynamics. It's a sincere homage to Krafterwerk and Neu, with strategic reworkings here and there. It's a garden of oscillation delights... You can hear it on "Timeshare," the way their voices, their human voices, start to meld ever closer to the harsher robotic-sounding distortion of those humming synthesizers. 

Nein! as they appear on the recordings of "Fashionable Living" includes: Dietrich, Weismueller, as well as Klaus Schumacher, and Hans Ziegler. 

You can stream the whole album this Friday.