Onetwo – Instead

A shame they split (on every level) after this. A truly excellent album that recaptures and develops the most fascinating aspects of Claudia's work within Propaganda - the Kraftwerk references in "Kein Anschluss" are a little on the nose but very nicely done anyway, and the overall feel of the album is one of sophisticated, high-tech pop melancholy with a sense of both filmic menace and hopeless romanticism. Of course "Cloud 9" in a slightly reworked version from the EP remains the standout track for me - but the rest of the songs are much stronger than the EP material. A very worthy release, and one of my favorite works by Claudia since "A Secret Wish.".

This is truly *the* defining release for Onetwo and hopefully a taste of what's to come as they continue to perform ever more feats of magic in the studio. The fact that they secured Bob Krushaar from the beginning shows they know what they're doing. That's a smart move there. Don't let him get away!

One might find it a bit ironic that "little Bobby Krushaar" (I think that's how Trevor Horn once referred to him) is all over this release when some 20 years ago his 40 hours of post production work that resulted in Wishful Thinking, in many ways a masterful job of editing, mixing, bending, warping, rearranging and creative abuse of Propaganda's recorded material, caused a certain amount of friction between Propaganda and Trevor Horn's rather unconventional and overbearing label ZTT. Well, that and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, now largely forgotten, was all the rage at the time and ZTT's ticket to ride. FGTH was made the top priority and milking that cash cow job number one. ZTT, the incredible hype machine built by Horn, was finally making a name for itself.

So would anyone care about these odd and confused visitors from Dusseldorf? They were already bound by a contract anyway so they weren't going anywere. And things only got worse. It's really not to surprising that Propaganda flew apart at the seams.

But that's not really Bob's fault though. And I've seen his name from time to time on slick productions like this one (an Ofra Haza remix single also comes to mind). It was probably a combination of Trevor Horn's uncompromising production style (remake everything an artist does without letting them in on it) and Propaganda's inexperience mixed with culture shock caused by arriving at ZTT of all places. Had it not been for ZTT, Propaganda might have survived.

It's good to see that Bobby is still in the music business and that he had a hand in yet another unforgettable production. I should have known he was involved. I've gotten this exact same "wow" vibe before and lo and behold, it's Krushaar again.

If you don't get ahold of this recording and you're a fan of either Humphries or Brucken, you must be a complete idiot or a gibbering simpleton. This is where it all came together and the strange logic of this unlikely partnership came sharply into focus.

Onetwo has arrived. Be There. Or else.