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BLONDIE
(Areal)
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Late last year, some prominent rock critic with a bad case of year-end tokenism decided Blondie was "the electronic album of 2004," ostensibly because Köln’s Ada (a/k/a Michaela Dippel) covered rock songs by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Everything But the Girl and maybe also because Ada is, you know, the whole "woman in a male-dominated genre" sort of thing. Problem is, the "Maps" cover ain’t so hot, "Each and Everyone" was better as the instrumental "Blindhouse," and labelmate Basteroid supposedly does Ada’s production. The album’s very good anyway. Ada is a songstress before she’s a track whore, willing to show her face with bright-eyed vocal melodies. She puts similarly plushy acts Superpitcher, Robag Wruhme, and Ulf Lohmann to shame all the more for it. Lush, prickly drones come easy to her, and the soft kick sounds and rounded treble squelches that pulse above and below them make for a truly distinct personality in a scene of notorious in-breeders. The first five tracks, particularly "The Red Shoes," with its toybox drills and puddling splatters, are perfect tech-house. And though the second half of Blondie never recovers the disc’s initial momentum, I was lying above about the "Maps" cover — it’s actually great.
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