To Rococo Rot
Speculation
Domino Recording Co
It’s calm, it’s cool, and it’s German electronica. It also has a new name, for what is a musical movement without a catchy moniker? “Post rock” takes guitar and drums and keyboards and uses them for something other than good old rock & roll. How Post Rock differs from jazz or chill music is beyond me, but To Rococo Rot is growing on me, even if I have trouble saying the name without stumbling. While beat-heavy and full of interesting modulations, this isn’t exactly get-up-and-boogie music, and it’s not even sway-slowly-with-someone-you-love music. Rather, it’s alternately calm and urgent, with carefully built transitions from slow to fast, played with a practiced hand that makes you think “Wait a minute… Where did all that forward velocity come from?” Occasional early Moog era beep-beep boop-boop noises open or close a song, but there is nearly always an easily identifiable melody and time signature, so we are clearly not into a “screw the listener” avant-garde ramble through the underbrush of some tortured genius’s subconscious. Somewhere on a website I found the term IDM (intelligent dance music) tied to these guys, and while the sound does invite introverted contemplation, I might, just might, feel like tapping my fingers to To Rococo Rot.
Domino Records: http://www.dominorecordingco.com • To Rococo Rot: http://www.myspace.com/torococorot
