Rotkappchen

Essentially a live electro combo, after three years on the London club and DJ circuit Rotkäppchen has decided that recording an EP would be a good idea.

Raw electro dance music rarely translates well when taken out of its natural club environment; it raison d’etre is to get people dancing, working on a primal level of rhythms and beats. Away from that it can sound cold and heartless, and that's the problem with the first two tracks on this EP.

RUonNE inexplicably samples Alan Partridge in intro, the synth lines are where you expect them to be, the blips and blops in the right places and the vocals are little more than chants for the club crowd to latch on to. It’s The Sound follows and frankly just sounds really lazy and vaguely reminiscent of the Flying Lizards.

However with A Royal Mez the EP takes a turn. This is an interesting reworking of Gomez’s Royalty. See the Stars follows and is a mellower more ambient track. They finish off with Someone Else which lets things down a bit; a sparse song, running on little more than a bubbling bass line, but breaking midway for a nice guitar interlude. Unfortunately running through the whole thing is an idiot making phutting noises into a mic. Didn't anybody else listen to this song before it was released?!

This is by no means a disaster; there the kernels of good ideas here and there, but overall its hard work, and, regardless of tastes, the listener may not get much of a reward for the effort.