Die Letzten Ecken Die Letzten Ecken 12″
Stark, minimal electro-punk from present-day Berlin, where the calendar might as well read 1981 judging from the recent crop of Neue Deutsche Welle-inspired projects coming out of the city’s Allee Der Kosmonauten DIY collective (see also: AUS and DIE SCHIEFE BAHN). The six tracks on this debut 12″ are translated though little more than buzzing synth, clattering percussion (electronic and not), and dryly-intoned vocals, with DIE LETZTEN ECKEN’s restrained and mechanically-driven rhythmic pulse fitting right into a long line of German/Swiss synth-wave going back to the late ’70s and early ’80s—GRAUZONE, D.A.F., MITTAGEISEN, XMAL DEUTSCHLAND, the list goes on. With their stern, driving beats and harsh synth throb, “Vakuum” and “Die Zahlen” are perfect steel-cold dance club bangers for the crowd that barely passed the Voight-Kampff test, while “I C H” and “Zauberworte” spiral into a warmer but still otherworldly hypnotic drone; the new kosmische musik for our modern tech-addled hellworld.