Staff Reviews

Moderat - Moderat

Review by Paul Clarke

Studied up close each track is excellent, with Modeselektor’s rougher sounds and Apparat’s smoother strands interweaving into textures which often make them feel like fondling chunks of concrete in silk gloves. But, just like concrete, when you stand back and consider ‘Moderat’ as a whole it can all seem a bit claustrophobic.»

User reviews

• 8/10 by sean
• 8/10 by gloomy666
• 9/10 by abandondrugs

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limited cd comes with bonus dvd featuring music videos and exclusive content. moderat's formation began back in 2002 when sascha ring (aka apparat) and gernot bronsert and sebastian szary (aka modeselektor) recorded an ep for the record label bpitch control. the making of this release was incredibly exhausting for the three of them, and at the last minute they renamed the ep 'auf kosten der gesundheit' (which translates to 'at the cost of health'). when it came time to begin working on an album, moderat suddenly broke up.
a short time later both modeselektor and apparat simultaneously worked on their own full-length albums - modeselektor's debut, 'hello mom!', and apparat's collaboration with ellen allien, 'orchestra of bubbles'. each went on to become successful releases and were followed by two career-defining albums for the individual acts. additionally, since their debut releases, both acts have performed over 1,000 shows at nearly every point of the globe.
modeselektor's sophomore album in 2007, 'happy birthday!', set a milestone in german music history including musicians such as puppetmastaz, maximo park and thom yorke. amongst a slew of remixes for thom yorke and bjork, modeslektor also went on to tour with radiohead across japan in 2008. apparat, on the other hand, moved forward with his album walls in 2007, taking a musical path that was more band-oriented and kept him on tour for several years running. it was a twist of fate that brought about modeselektor and apparat's reunion in the spring of 2008. the three gentlemen quickly decided to get back to work on their collaborative album post haste. thus, moderat was reformed. in recording moderat's self-titled album, the three men began by renting studio space at the legendary berlin hansa studios (where bowie recorded 'heroes') in order to record the album in analog with the help of the studio's vintage tube technology and an old emi console from 1972, restored especially for moderat. american software designer, joshua kit clayton, was hired to program a superb reverb algorithm specifically for the recording process of this album. in the studio, the berlin vocalist dell (aka eased) from leading german act seeed found himself in moderat's studio room while on a quest to find a bottle opener. there on the spot, the three gents of moderat finally waved good-bye to the concept of a mere instrumental album and said hello to vocal recordings and the song 'sick with it'. all this encouraged szary and bronsert to convince ring it was time for him to contribute vocals, which can be heard on 'rusty nails' and 'out of sight'. 'rusty nails' is the first single, which will feature remixes by shackleton and booka shade. this limited edition version features a dvd produced by the berlin based artist collective pfadfinderei. the dvd features music videos and more exclusive content.
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