Schneider TM - Moist

Though Moist is weirdly recalling Atom TM, both in terms of sound and look, surprisingly enough, Schneider TM is not an alias of prolific German musician Uwe Schmidt. It's the solo project of Dirk Dresselhaus, a project the musician started after spending some time playing in various German indie rock acts, such as Hip Young Things and Locust Fudge, throughout the 1990's. Moist is the inaugural LP in a career of techno pop songs maker that spans over the first 3 decades of the 21st Century, and would eventually saw the artist sign deals with Virgin Records (Zoomer, 2002), Editions Mego (The 8 Of Space, 2001) and Bureau B.

Released by Mute and City Slang, Schneider TM's debut has a much craftier vibe than his slick second album on Virgin. It oscillates between straight tech-house grooves ("Moist", "Up-Tight"), spaced-out exotica - recalling Felix Kubin ("Eiwess"), Playstation quirkiness ("Moonboots", "Camping"), and hard-to-pin down oddities (the shoegazy "Starfuck" or the atmospheric "Masters"). Special mention to the 8-min long krautrock song "Raum Im Ort".

The kind of innocent-looking record that gets more and more interesting after a proper tracklist breakdown. Sometimes, it's all it takes to turn a generic 1998 electronic music LP into a complex sonic maze : a closer look.