Tobias, the stripped down house moniker of scene stalwart Tobias Freund, is an important figure in the rotating cast at Berlin's Ostgut Ton. Having worked as a sound engineer, the strength of Tobias' previous releases has always been in the staggering quality of his production. A Series of Shocks is no different. From the intricacies of the ambient opener to the bulk of the album's later dance-floor orientated productions, the balancing of sound is meticulous throughout.
Though the attention to detail has always been a constant for Tobias, the straighter-laced dance-floor orientation of A Series of Shocks is somewhat of a departure from his previous full-length. Although Tobias is undoubtedly making some fantastic loopy dance tracks, "He Said" and "Fast Null" being prime examples, there is a certain mystique lost in their culmination in the long-play format. Where the intricate heterogeneity of the tracks on 2011's Leaning Over Backwards made it such an engaging listen, A Series of Shocks shoots for a different kind of looping hypnotism but lands slightly short.
(Ostgut Ton)Though the attention to detail has always been a constant for Tobias, the straighter-laced dance-floor orientation of A Series of Shocks is somewhat of a departure from his previous full-length. Although Tobias is undoubtedly making some fantastic loopy dance tracks, "He Said" and "Fast Null" being prime examples, there is a certain mystique lost in their culmination in the long-play format. Where the intricate heterogeneity of the tracks on 2011's Leaning Over Backwards made it such an engaging listen, A Series of Shocks shoots for a different kind of looping hypnotism but lands slightly short.
