Search - Ellen Allien :: Sool

Ellen Allien pushes techno into new territories

Steward Willons | Illinois | 07/09/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Sool" is a surprising departure for techno queen Ellen Allien. Rather than give us another album of awesome, tuneful techno, she gives us a CD made more for listening than dancing. The music is at once unexpected and a logical progression from her earlier work. Where her previous albums were made of individual songs, "Sool" is more like one continuous work. It's not exactly a concept album, per se, but the flow and overall form points to something larger than a track-by-track format.



Since I have no doubt that Allien will continue to pump out the minimal techno tracks, I'm happy that she's also exploring this new direction. I've always thought techno could be more than music for dancing, but the "listening" type records always seem to fall under different labels such as downtempo, trip hop, or the unfortunately named IDM. Well, here it is - a techno album you can listen to all the way through while maintaining musical interest.



I'm not giving it five stars because it's not quite a masterpiece. Some of the tracks are a bit weak and periodically lapse into a momentary autopilot phase. Essentially, it's a great album, but not a masterpiece. She's got something even better coming in the future and when it arrives, I'm sure it will warrant a five-star review.



Ellen Allien fans need to get this - techno fans need to get this - electronic music fans need to get this. It demonstrates all the potential of techno beyond its dance function and it demonstrates it well. Check it out."