Klapper Klapper cassette
More minimal grooves spawned from Berlin’s new wave of Neue Deutsche Welle, this time courtesy of the drum machine-abetted duo KLAPPER. Like hometown peers AUS and OSTSEETRAUM, KLAPPER is upholding the German tradition of disaffected, synthesized post-punk, but they’ve added some spacious, dub-inspired turns that both play into the starkness of that particular sound and moderate the overall severity of it. The reductive electro-punk rhythms of “Exciting Life” are paired with beyond-impersonal vocals chronicling the rote tasks of modern life (work, phone calls, trips to the post office, consuming food for sustenance) before ultimately landing on an ice-cold command to “be happy and satisfied” that cuts straight to the bone, while the similarly deadpan lyrical focus of “Success” (“Life is about success / And I have success”) hits a little differently against a white funk bounce of busy bass and writhing guitar. When KLAPPER descends into seedy synth-wave—really just on the instrumentals “Rattle Stork” and “Crane”—it’s not quite as compelling, but I’ll take the rest of it (that downer-ESG throb of “Born to Obey”!) in a heartbeat.