VA: 2rabimmel 2rabammel 2rabum 2bum bum
Areal
Though the album cover's crude line drawing (created by the nephew of Areal's resident DJ Jan-Eric Kaiser) and title (“Rabimmel Rabammel Rabum Bum Bum” is a German song children sing on the day of the blessed Saint Martin) suggest a 'child' theme of sorts, you won't hear nostalgic odes to childhood innocence on Areal's second full-length compilation. While it's certainly polished, the seventy-one minute 2rabimmel 2rabammel 2rabum 2bum bum teems with hard-core techno that's unapologetically grimy and skuzzy. If the dramatis personae hasn't changed radically from last year's Bis Neunzehn (Konfekt, Basteroid, and Metope, Remute, and Ada return, joined by new recruits Roan, Imogen, and Ha.Te), the label's own claim that it's “our loudest and noisiest release ever” is spot-on.
Setting the bar high at the outset, skuzzy bass lines roll through Basteroid's mechano flailer “Hammel” while gentler motifs strain to be heard amidst buzzing synth chatter. The industrial smears and pounds that initiate Roan's “Der Storch Und Seine Folgen” grow increasingly dense, though the tension-building threat of detonation never arrives. Ada (Michaela Dippel) demonstrates why her ascendant star status is fully justified: “2 Bum Bum” confidently struts its broil of glistening keys and synth squeals, while the entrancing shuffle “Bum Bum” lifts a motif from Blondie's “Eve.” A heavy analog side inflames Areal's sound as old-school synths flare throughout grinding bruisers by Metope (“2raboum - Die Fete Geht Weiter” and “Rabum”), Imogen (“Gruner Wirds Nichts”), and Konfekt (“Nur Unter Dieser Bedingung”) plus a healthy measure of acid insanity courses through some songs too (Basteroid's “Rabimmel,” Konfekt's “Ra(bammel),” and Ha.te's “Kein Anschluss Mit Dieser Nummer”). The album peak? Sounding like a more perfect version of T.Raumschmiere's techno-punk shuffle, the steamrolling stomp of Remute's massive “Mit Freundlichen Fussen” lays waste to everything in its path.September 2005