Yoy

Like a Stuntman's third album finds the German quartet at a good spot in time and place -- there's just enough cryptic dance-friendly swirl and swoon and crackling texture at work, not to mention some breathless falsetto singing, to really be something that could only have happened in 2011. Not that the roots aren't clear enough -- one can't escape the feeling that Kid A and Amnesiac had a lot to do with the band coming together in the first place in 2001, and the song title "A Decade or Less" could be an oblique acknowledgment of the time the group has put in over the years -- but the fragmented wash of samples suggests more recent antecedents and approaches. "Dog Show Digest" is another example of the band's implied Arthur Russell fascination coming to the fore, with watery pulses and the breathless swoop of the singing resulting in the album's first fully gripping song, a careful ebb and flow. The title track concludes the album with even more fuzz and texture, a rumbling but perky break rising and falling in the mix as vocals move from clarity to stuttering notes, a bit of sweeping exultance constantly broken up and reworked. In contrast, the clipped beats and notes of "Hell No" show that they can work in more than one mode, though the wash of extra echo and suddenly building then withdrawn instrumentation indicate that this mode remains key. And perhaps it's down to something German, but having a song called "Boy Campaign" is a little odd -- yet the combination of threat in the verses and calmer sashay in the choruses, not to mention the big pulse of bass underpinning both, is its own kick. ~ Ned Raggett