Qrauer — Odd Fazes

Spanning orchestral soundscapes, punchy minimal techno, inventive IDM and genre-de- fying collaborative creations, qrauer’s Odd Fazes album brings the highly acclaimed duo into exciting new sonic territory.

While previous release Heeded brought a sense of nostalgic, haunting glimpses, Odd Fazes is infused with a feeling of newness. Opening with the glitchy orchestral drones of Reg. Capture, the album progresses quickly into the polyrhythmic techno grooves of Drumthriver and Wurmes. Here, Christian Grochau’s virtuosic percussion skills seem to have found their perfect electronic counterpart, as rhythms effortlessly grow from minimal grooves to moments of glorious, surprising complexity while never sacrificing their danceability. Elsewhere, the harmonic and tonal skills brought by pianist and composer Ludwig Bauer come to the foreground, as in delicate lo fi piano interlude Foq and the ambient yet grooveled sound world of Outgrown. Fans of Aphex Twin and Christian Löffler will feel at home taking this journey from modern classical to electronic dance music and back again, but this album is more than a merging of music genres rat her, it’s a conversation between two distinct yet perfectly complementary musical and compositional voices.

As if to highlight the importance of creative collaboration to the album, closing tracks Rund and Oval bring cellist Anne Müller into the equation. In Rund, the cello feels like a subtle build in the distance, coming into clarity in carefully selected moments within a multilayered techno track; in the epic soundscapes of Oval, the cello takes centre stage to close the album in the same orchestral mood that began it – the resolution of a journey through musical distinctions and complexities.

qrauer are a German electronic duo made up of Christian Grochau, a virtuosic percussionist, producer and remix artist and Ludwig Bauer, a deft pianist, multi-instrumenta- list, and composer. Odd Fazes is their highly anticipated first full length album, following on from EPs Aracus (2018) and Heeded (released in April 2022), with lead single The Mess picking up major radio play including playlisting from Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC 6 Music.

MORE >