Looking at the cover should be your first warning. Steingarten shows the kind of castle even Disney would have considered ‘over the top’. In a landscape you could never even imagine.
The warning seems to serve a purpose, because at first casual listen this album feels far more lightweight than earlier Pole albums. We did not expect this kind of poppy electronics from Stefan Betke!
Well: time to adjust the expectations and retry.
On second (and further) listening this album shows it’s subtleties: Betke handles his electronics far more creative than many others in this time and genre. Every single sample is as rightplaced as it is inventive. The production is wide open and accessible, but also very adventurous.
So like it’s cover, this album may put you off-balance at first. But if you regain your balance and persist, you will enjoy it even more than you would have thought possible when you looked at the cover…
It my be hard to believe, but this impressive castle from the cover really exists!
It’s called ‘Schloss Neuschwanstein’ and is located in Schwangau, Bavaria (Germany).
Here’s some more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein