Unwound from the Wood

This is the second album from Düsseldorf-based Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka, Tonetraeger) and Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot, Mapstation), with vocals and lyrics by Scottish author Luke Sutherland (Long Fin Killie, Mogwai). Combining gentle seduction with high tension, Unwound from the Wood features mature electro-pop with subtle wind sections, guitar themes and sophisticated rhythms. These songs are admirably flexible, revealing R&B-style diary entries, shimmering instrumentals and trips that take US to the great pop songwriting-factories of the '60s. Eleven songs teem with sparkling electronics, driving drum patterns, whirlpools of guitar and Rhodes, choirs beamed in from distant solar systems, all laid out on beds of the bluest bass and brass, accompanied by stories of love, loss, longing and libido. Quatermass. 2006.