Air Liquide - Let Your Ears Be the Receiver

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Certainly no one can complain about a lack of energy or passion on Let Your Ears Be The Receiver, the twelfth album from Air Liquide (Cem Oral aka Jammin? Unit and Ingmar Koch aka Dr. Walker); that much of it was recorded from the dance floor at Dr. Walker?s Club Camouflage in Cologne makes perfect sense too as sweaty club ambiance oozes from every pore of the disc?s twelve tracks. Unfortunately, so too does an entire inventory of clichés, since each moment of satisfying originality is countered by an equally dissatisfying moment of banality. Take the opener ?So Much Love? for starters. It opens strongly with a smooth tech-house groove but then tired populist tropes like disco strings, squealing synths, and a soul chorus undermine it. The same criticism applies lyrically too, as Marcea?s soulful wail on ?I Do My Best? is wasted when she?s saddled with lines like ?Tonight I?m goin? to lose control / Tonight I?m goin? to get to my soul.? And poor judgment sinks ?Fuckdup - Campfire Version,? as presumably someone thought Mary S. Applegate?s incessant refrain ?fuckdup? would distinguish the track. Instead, it becomes an annoying distraction in an otherwise tolerable folk song.

Admittedly, not everything disappoints. ?Turkish Delight? comes across as a dreamy, hallucinatory concoction of phantom voices, psychedelic organ lines, and electronic shimmer, plus ?Receiver!? and ?Autopilot? impress as credible enough Cologne techno. Plus the group?s passionate fusion of German techno with soul, funk, and house no doubt offers much clubbing pleasure. Still, nothing on this recording lends credence to New Musical Express?s 1995 description of Air Liquide as the ?first electronic supergroup since Kraftwerk.? Frankly, the group responsible for Let Your Ears Be The Receiver inhabits a far less celestial galaxy than the one that spawned Trans-Europe Express.

(Absorb Magazine, June 2004)

TRACKLIST

1. SO MUCH LOVE

2. TURKISH DELIGHT

3. I DO MY BEST

4. FUCKDUP (CAMPFIRE VERSION)

5. LET YOUR EARS BE THE RECEIVER

6. RECEIVER!

7. GO DEH YAKA (IN A LIQUID STYLEE)

8. PANIC IN THE STREETS

9. THANKS, BUT NO THANKS

10. AUTOPILOT

11. MARY'S DUB

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