When researching a band, it can be hard to sift through the hype. Most of the time, it bores me to tears or makes me roll my eyes at all the glad-handing and back-scratching that goes on in the music industry. However, while tooling around on the internet to find some info on Extrawelt (loosely translatable to “extra world” or “other world” from German), I was actually slightly disappointed. “The initial idea was to present an album covering all styles of electronic music between Ambient, Breakbeats and Techno. When we had 25 tracks for the album ready, we had to realize that this approach did not work for us. Insofar, we finally decided to use the 4/4 bass drum in all tracks,” is how the account reads. What disappoints is the disparity between the initial idea and what ended up on record.

I don’t have a distaste for house music anymore, I learned that some time ago, but I do love when house-centered music allows its particles to spin a little further out from the dance-centric. Extrawelt’s Schone Neue Extrawelt (loosely “beautiful new other world”) is certainly more melodic than many other house acts I’ve encountered, but pales in comparison to the outer-house explorations of Trentmoller. Trentmoller baptizes house beats with a cinematic quality beyond the music video medium’s parameters. Extrawelt seems comfortable to sit just on the home side of the fence, looking out, dreaming of pushing just that much further. In fact, this record sounds like the perfect accompaniment to reentry after being in Trentmoller orbit.

Once “One Tree Hill” gets thumping, I feel like my head is inside the ball on a roulette table, but in a stable, rhythmic progression. Trapped inside with me is the ghost of a drunken piano player whose soul still yearns for the stage. Whereas the beginning of “Dark Side of My Room” (Pink Floyd fans snickering?) sounds like playing basketball in the rain. Some of the static, less discernible rhythms attempt to mask the heavier, undeniable beat, which is the bouncing of the basketball. And one other positive comparison comes from the bubble bass on “Wippsteert.” It reminds me of the bass track on the title song to Mr. Oizo’s Analog Worms Attack.

My one regret while listening to this album has been that I’ve almost always been listening late at night. Normally this is not a problem, but in a shared housing situation it is hard to experience good bass late at night. Mostly, I was wearing headphones, when really, I just wanted to be planted directly in front of a set of 12” woofers and drenched in the sweat that only occurs in a crowded venue. The consistency of the rhythms would certainly make for a good road trip album.

-Gabriel Bogart