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German techno ensemble Meute was an unusual combination of
techno DJing and marching band: instead of using electronic devices (drum-machines, synths, etc) they only used acoustic instruments.
When they debuted on Tumult (2017), they were a multi-drum 12-piece
ensemble led by a trumpeter, Thomas Burhorn.
All the songs on the album are covers.
Their eight-minute cover of The Man With The Red Face (a 2000 single by Laurent Garnier with saxophonist Philippe Nadaud) develops with the saxophones holding a charleston-swing beat over droning trombone.
The similarity with the
Love Of Life Orchestra is evident in
Acamar (originally a 2015 single by Frankey & Sandrino, i.e. producers Frank Beckers and Sandrino Tittel):
funky guitar, steady disco beat, exuberant brass section;
but with the addition of a romantic trumpet motif borrowed from
Ennio Morricone's soundtracks
and of Caribbean percussion.
Big-band jazz and minimalist repetition meet in their rendition of Cygnus (a 2015 single by Sezer Uysal and Ivan "Coyu" Salinas).
There is a hint of a comic musichall in the trombone-driven polka locomotive Every Wall Is a Door (a 2012 single by Anthony "N'To" Favier) and in
the
frenzied salsa Rej (a 2006 song by Ame, i.e. the duo of Kristian Beyer with Frank Wiedemann).
The ensemble (Sebastian Borkowski, Adrian Hanack, Niklas Gottschall and Philip Andernach on saxophones, Philipp Westermann on sousaphone, Andre' Wittmann on marimba, Chris Luers on trombone, Hans-Christian Stephan on second trumpet, and three percussionists) turns even the dumber dancefloor number into a clever post-modern
concoction.
The follow up, Puls (2020), has already lost much of that intellectual verve. However, this time the compositions are almost all original.
The exuberance of Hans-Christian Stephan's Holy Harbour and Burhorn's Push is a sterile game.
The double-LP Taumel (2022) boasts the
infectious charleston-swing disco jam Infinite (the standout) and the Caribbean-tinged Slow Loris, plus an exhilarating cover of
Jordan "No Mana" Orcaz's 2016 song Nostalgia Drive,
but the band has largely abandoned the juvenile techno-centered premise and now
sails towards more adult styles, like the
lounge-jazz saxophone melody at the core of both Expanse and Narkose or the house ballad Bridged By A Lightwave.
(Copyright © 2023 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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