Aaaaaaa Zombies! Run!
I've been sitting on this album, the new full-length by Zombie Nation, for a month now and it has been driving me crazy. It is called Black Toys, and I really cannot say enough good things about this record.
As far as electronic music full-lengths goes, this is an easy and enjoyable listen with all kinds of depths to plumb. It reminds me quite a lot of Movements by Booka Shade, in that the songs are simply really good dance music - they can work both at home on your couch or roving about on your iPod, where you can catch all the fine details, and they are totally fitting in a club setting, with enormous basslines and wicked electronics to get your body moving.
Zombie Nation is the production alias of Florian Senfter, but he also goes by the names DJ Splank and John Starlight (ZN also used to include Emanuel Günther, aka Mooner, but he left to pursue his own projects). You probably remember their incredibly catchy "Kernkraft 400" song - big room trancey-techno with robot voices and a C64 melody - it was popular with pretty much everyone, both under- and over-ground, but got played to death. Well, since then, this Zombie has kept things going, always pushing boundaries and keeping things on the edge. When I put this album on for the first time, I really didn't know what to expect, and found myself very pleasantly surprised.
Black Toys is the third full-length by Zombie Nation, and it is wonderfully all over the map. Techno, electro-house, downtempo grooves, all laced with live instrumentation and Starlight's delicate production-hand in the mix. This is deeply layered stuff that is honestly a real treat. It is out next month on UKW, a sub-label of Dekathlon Records, run by Starlight himself. It is distributed by Kompakt, so it will be available pretty much everywhere electronic music is sold, like our friends at Forced Exposure, or the Kompakt-MP3-NET. The first single off the album, "Booster" is out now, and I highly recommend getting your grubby little mitts on it ASAP.
Highly recommended for fans of Gomma records stuff like Headman, Munk; for fans of Get Physical's Booka Shade and M.A.N.D.Y.; and D.C. Recordings recent output. Wicked.