Now out on Bureau B.
CAMERA - PHANTOM OF LIBERTY
The beat hammers like the pulse of a pair of lovers on the run from a gang of racist thugs - the sound is manic, but from it speaks a seemingly insurmountable inner strength. This arch of tension is home to Camera. The Berlin band is rightly compared with icons of seventies Krautrock such as Neu! and La Dldorf, with a tight and driving sound, yet they are still somehow unpredictable.
Hardly any other band understands how to mutate tiny musical nuances into volcanic eruptions like they do. Camera is a motor running at full throttle, where an explosion could occur at any second. Once you have embarked on this crazy journey, you will be fascinated by the alternating current somewhere between a flash flood and roller coaster running off the rails.
The cascades of sound convey a blurry image of a boundless desire to revolt, with each blink of an eye threatening to end in purgatory, yet it is damned near indestructible. Michael Drummer is the ethereal Indian paleface who pummels his drums at every show as if we're in the midst of a 17th Century incarnational ritual. In Steffen Kahles, who hails from the world of film music, he has found the musical partner he needed to enrich the tribal kraut beat with diverse motifs and bold sounds.
On the third Camera album "Phantom of Liberty", we hear the clever use of playful sounds such as synths that beam us back into the Commodore 64 computer games of 1984; or slightly cranky keyboard pads, as if created by deliberately manipulating the speed of an old tape machine. With "Phantom of Liberty" Camera show that they have become more mature and complex without losing any of their tremendous energy.
