MIT - 'Coda' (Half Machine) Released 17/03/08

JA! MIT are German. They play electronic music. They sound like Neu! And Kraftwerk. Of course they do: they’re German and they play electronic music. Their name must have something more symbolic to it than being simply the German for WITH but I don’t want to know it. Their lyrics must have some English translation but they sounds so shitting good in German that who could possibly give a horse’s cock what they mean either.

This isn’t music for understanding. This is marching music. This is dark marching music. Dark dancing music. Dancing in the dark music. We want to learn German if only to sing along, chant along and fall into line. “Sie heisen mir Herr Bombastisch, sehr fantastisch, herr liebhaber, liebhaber!”

MIT’s tunes unashamedly reference their German predecessors, wallowing in the filth left behind by their older stablemates. But they grab from elsewhere too, to keep things fresh, and to be there own man (-machine). Opener ‘Beispeil’ comes on with some of the tribal fury Liars have chosen to inject into their recent efforts, and Holy Fuck have claimed for their own.

Elsewhere the mash of glitch and vocal manipulations has more in common with Boards of Canada like on ‘Gibt Es Denn Keine Anderen Grund’ where whispering cries and snips of incongruous sound mix with endless repetition. Perhaps the most pertinent reference point is Suicide – electronic punk rock, words as weapons. ‘Merz’ has the beat to get you moving, and move you must, but MIT don’t make it easy – rejecting catchy hooks in favour of mantra-like repetition, doom-laden builds and damning cries.

The finest moment here comes after a good 35 minutes when ‘Rauch’ pipes up with a textbook example of how to get the body going. The Drums bounce off each other, the synths swirl, the bass pulses and the keynotes skip across the top with effortless taste.

While not for the faint-hearted Coda is an intense and rewarding trip. Wunderbar!