Voom:Voom - Peng Peng

I think this album is a masterpiece. There are so many sounds and styles that get a distinctive nod by the producers that it is incredibly dificult to describe; in spite of this, however, one simply cannot leave the word HOUSE out... though it is clearly inadequate. What you'll find on this recording is textures, colours, rhythms, and lots of them. Excellent work from people who really know how to make people dance... and that's what "dance" music is all about, isn't it?

They must be smokin’ the bad shit round Wiener town – this is one weird album. The title should be a give away – anything that sounds like it was written by a pair of Chinese pandas (or maybe was) is bound to be a bid oddball. But tracks that manage to combine Zapp & Roger, Kraftwerk, classic disco and minimal house in two minutes... well, that’s not unusual, I suppose. What’s really weird is that, in VoomVoom’s case, the influences re-appear undigested. To say regurgitated isn’t quite right – if you regurgitate something, it looks, well, different, innit. No, in this case they’re just put side by side, sometimes for the better, often for the weirder, and overall for the worse.
Ableton users will know the temptation well. It’s all too easy in this day and age to just re-combine four bar loops into a track. Within the space of a minute, you can have a searing 303 tear-out looping in time and in phase with a Pat Benetar vocal snippet, a John Bonham drum break and the hook from ‘manah-manah’ by the Muppets. I stress can. I wonder, with equal stress, should we?
Voom Voom seem to think so. I don’t. What’s even stranger is this is kind of an electronic ‘super group’- not quite the ‘Travelling Wilburys,’ but three very established names: Roland Appel and Christian Prommer from ‘Fauna Flash’ and Peter Kruder of ‘Peace Orchestra’ and ‘Kruder and Dorfmeister’ fame. You’d think they’d know better. You’d think they could do better. They don’t. Obviously this collaboration came about through a few weekends mutual (and perhaps brutal) midi-controller spanking. You tweak my knob, I’ll twist your tone pot. No doubt it was pleasurable, but when it sounds this bad, should we have to listen to the moaning?