Dieter Schöön - Lablaza

(Muso's Guide, March 31, 2009)

Album review

From the dirgey opening of ‘Manuel’, Swede Dieter Schöön marries the denseness of Berlin-era Bowie with the artifice of stylish rockers Roxy Music.

‘Manuel’ pays homage to Bryan Ferry’s London artrockers right down to the mangled free jazz saxophone section which splits the track, while the rest of the record dives headlong into a pool of influences included with, but not limited to, Beck, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Can and the afore-mentioned alter-ego of David Jones. If that list make Schöön’s début Lablaza sound largely inaccessible, than you’re right on the money, but that’s not to say it is without merit.

The icily cool Germanic consonants of Schöön complement the industrialised electronic beats of single ‘Mary Jane’, a song incongruously introduced by mariachi trumpets which call to mind Mark Morriss’ ‘I’m Sick’ or Hello Saferide’s ‘High School Stalker’, but what follows is simply more challenging than those other tracks. Ironically for an album which contains the track ‘Warm Hearts’, there is a coldness to the recording that makes it hard to connect with Schöön.

That track is heralded by a Casiotone-style intro and, with a juddering waltz beat, offers a repetitive, vocally-experimental pop song sounding for all the world like a slightly stoned Kraftwerk. The lyric, “Our faces were all just stupid I guess/But with warm hearts”, which becomes so mangled as to end on a slightly disturbing note.

Electronic ‘The Harbour’s Cold’ has a chill through it, with Schöön staring out to the sea in search of something. “Smoke a spliff in the afternoon”, he reveals, which is a clue to the feeling of this complex record, and so seemingly removed from human feeling. A much-needed injection of emotional realism comes in the form of the atmospheric, tragically-theme ‘Soft and Slow’. This Gideon Coe favourite builds to a heart-rending crescendo with the lyric, “Where you been so long?”, prompting the listener to address a world of hurt and unaddressed breakdown.

But as quickly as the tears come, they are banished again, by the ruthlessly efficient ‘I’ll Go There’ and ‘Auf Wiedersehen’. Multi-lingual and multi-talented, nonetheless Schöön’s express intention seems to be to evade categorisation, which gives rise to words like ‘unique’ and ‘indefinable’. The most evocative influence here would be Beck, but even that pop-friendly name falls short of explaining the division between Schöön and accessibility.

Lablaza is certainly intriguing, but the next album will show if it’s really got something brighter to offer - or if it is just a flash in the pan.