After techno acts
Modeselektor and
Apparat completed a trilogy of successful, increasingly pop-oriented albums under the collaborative handle
Moderat, they released
Live, an audio document of their concert experience. The outfit had become an acclaimed live draw, and had mainly taken their show to festivals and large-scale venues rather than small nightclubs, and
Live was primarily recorded at a sold-out hometown performance in Berlin. It was most certainly a concert, with full breaks for applause in between most of the songs, as opposed to something closer to a DJ set where all the tracks are seamlessly segued and crossfaded. As such, the concert leans heavily toward vocal-based songs, although there are a few instrumentals, and not all of the songs are dance tracks, either -- there are plenty of haunting melancholy ballads as well. These songs showcase the group's knack for sophisticated sound design (such as the glitchy midsection of "Intruder"), but the audience seems like it's waiting patiently during these numbers. When the hits do come, however, the crowd responds enthusiastically. All it takes is the mere appearance of the elephant-like synth blurt of "Bad Kingdom" (the group's hookiest song) for the crowd to go wild. By the end of the song, Sascha Ring stops singing and the crowd takes over. "Reminder" (the first single from
III) also gets the crowd clapping and cheering along by the end. The group then plays "Eating Hooks," a more mysterious, moody cut from
III, but it segues into the
Siriusmo remix of the same song, which is far more uptempo, club-focused, and exciting. The concert ends by turning "Nr. 22," a dubstep instrumental from
Moderat's 2009 debut album, into a lengthy, suspenseful expedition. For a group of musicians once associated with more obscure, esoteric forms of techno,
Moderat has surprisingly grown into a project with stadium-size ambitions. In terms of another, more famous electropop
Mode (namely
Depeche),
Live is essentially
Moderat's
101. ~ Paul Simpson