Berlin's Ostseetraum are full of surprises. I was under the impression that they had an established sound that they were on their way to perfecting, habilitating the frantic and semi-auto, replicant rhythmatics of their self-titled cassette to a kind of robo-rockabilly and cyberpunk scrap-hauling drape-rock for their
Mondmenschen EP. However, the 11-track
Wie ein übersäuerter See manages to build on both these past releases without being anticipated by them and, therefore, feels like its own divergent, radical tangent. What remains consistent about Ostseetraum is their minimalist, desaturated compositions and the calculatedly indifferent, sanitized affect of the vocal delivery, but this latest release sees the addition of ballast-shifting baselines that anchor established aspects of their aesthetics in a manner that helps to flesh them out, not only in terms of their of the musculature of these track's melodies but the environments in which they inhabit as well. A track like "Leicht Verpackt" not only resembles a ritual out of time but actually feels like it's expanding through space as well, twisting the beads of a curtained doorway as it pulsates and manifests in a basement hooka lounge, increasing in mass until it punches through the gravity of perception into the subterranean depth of deeper comprehension. You can really sense the band leaning into the psychedelic potential in their sound when they dip their toes in some especially dank reverb on the Iron Butterflytethered, psychotropic-sink "Schlucken," while opener "Knallhart" embodies the twilight of an ill-fated magic mystery tour through a burning Korg warehouse. There is also a notable influence of early, experimental disco present on this release, whose spacy, funky overdrive can be experienced through the chime and charm cosmic corridor of "Macht" as well as the electric light-opera super-burnout "Wut." Ostseetraum has demonstrated again that there is no center to their sound, only an insatiable hunger to metabolize sounds and styles and recast an increasingly wide selection of aesthetics in their own galvanized image.
