Automat - Plusminus (2015)

The analog mother of all minimalist pop species is Dub. Rhythm and sound are more important than melodies. And repetition reveals itself as a form of change—if only because the focus gravitates to the small yet important details. Under this premise, the Berlin-based trio Automat (Jochen Arbeit, Achim Färber, Georg Zeitblom) has now recorded an exceptional album. Of course, we are not dealing with classic dub reggae here. And the Detroit Techno of musicians such as Terrence Dixon is another story. The thunderous bass lines, delirious rhythms and hypnotic sounds make the notion of categories and genres seem superfluous. In a way PLUSMINUS recalls the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's "2001": There's nothing here that one could hold onto, and yet so much of it that the listener is transported into a kind of trance.