Moderat: Moderat [BPITCH CONTROL]

Why you'll love it

This BPitch Control LP comes in a gatefold jacket, pressed in Germany. It's the first album from the Berlin supergroup of Modeselektor and Apparat, pairing club-weight bass with Apparat's melancholy melodies.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Berlin's electronic scene has a habit of producing collaborations that sound like they shouldn't work. Take Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary of Modeselektor, kings of rowdy, bass-heavy club tracks, and pair them with Sascha Ring, alias Apparat, a maker of delicate, melancholic electronica. The result, after an early EP and a long pause, was Moderat.

Their debut balances the two sides beautifully. "A New Error" is a soaring instrumental that builds and builds, "Rusty Nails" puts Ring's fragile voice over slow-burning beats, and "Seamonkey" bounces with Modeselektor's mischief. "Porc #1" and "Porc #2" lean into dubstep weight, "Les Grandes Marches" swells grandly, and "Out Of Sight" closes things in a soft glow. Inside the gatefold, the words "For Charlie" are the band's own quiet dedication.

Montreal director Xavier Dolan picked "A New Error" for Laurence Anyways in 2012, which gave the track a whole new Canadian audience. Moderat went on to make two more albums and play festival main stages, which is a fair outcome for three chaps who set out to make a record together and see what happened.

Also at Kops: more Moderat on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On BPitch Control (cat# BPC 200), the 2009 album.