Automat is: Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Haut), Achim Färber (Project Pitchfork, Philipp Boa), Georg Zeitblom (Sovetskoe Foto). Finally the 2nd album is being unleashed… The analog mother of all minimalist pop species is Dub. Rhythm and sound are more important than melodies. And repetition reveals itself as a form of change—if only because the focus gravitates to the small yet important details. Under this premise, the Berlin-based trio Automat has now recorded an exceptional album. Of course, we are not dealing with classic dub reggae here. And the Detroit Techno is another story. The thunderous bass lines, delirious rhythms and hypnotic sounds make the notion of categories and genres seem superfluous. PLUSMINUS recalls the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's "2001": There's nothing here that one could hold onto, and yet so much of it that the listener is transported into a kind of trance.
