It’s enough to make any bedroom electronicist green with envy. A home experimenter releases their debut album to instant attention. Under normal circumstances, another Squarepusher wannabe would be hard pushed getting anyone to take much notice. These aren’t normal circumstances as Luftbobler is by one half of agitated art siblings Jake and Dinos Chapman.
Despite being wholly in thrall to its influences, bits of Luftbobler are ok – it’s not entirely style over substance. As well as Squarepusher and the less-white noise end of early Aphex Twin, “Still Walking” and “Hot on the Heels of Love” Throbbing Gristle loom large. The semantic link between TG’s “Hamburger Lady” and Chapman’s “Pizza Man” is probably not a coincidence. Ancient-sounding drum machines clack, synth patterns pulse, jagged fax-machine tones blow in, disembodied, treated voices fade in and out. One of them is apparently Kylie Minogue. “Cool Operator” nails it best, eviscerating Kraftwerk’s Computer World and then freeze-drying it. Luftbobler is a desiccated, cold experience.
There’s no sense of confronting expectations or taking the known into new, potentially disturbing, territories. The characteristics of Chapman’s visual art are absent. So is the restless energy. There's nothing of the sonic exploration of a Matthew Herbert or a Scott Walker. It’s unlikely that anyone wedded to the outer edges of electronica with no idea of who Chapman is would react to this with more than a shrug. From someone whose work is otherwise so strikingly fascinating, Luftbobler is a disappointment.
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