Jan Jelinek

Though Jan Jelinek has been around since the late ’90s producing micro-house as Farben and minimal techno as Gramm, he delivered his greatest critical success under his own name with 2001’s Loop-finding-jazz-records. His follow-up to that album, 2003’s La Nouvelle Pauvreté, was a hazy and hissy pop-inflected album that was generally well received but ultimately considered underwhelming by comparison. With his third ~scape album, Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek has moved on to a German title (translating into "Cosmic Pitch”), creating an album that matches the ingenuity and appeal of his previous 2001 peak. And he’s formed a band to do it. Whereas four years ago Jelinek found inspiration in dusty jazz records, this time round he’s focusing on early Krautrock bands like Popol Vuh, Amon Duul and Tangerine Dream — bands who used electronic sounds to make spacey and oftentimes ethereal music. As a result, Kosmischer Pitch has a surprisingly organic feel to it, and is layered with thick overtones of psychedelia. Much like album collaborator Andrew Pekler, who has just released the equally brilliant Strings + Feedback, Jan Jelinek has taken a major detour from the flagging consortium of glitch-dub acts and offered up an album that barely connects to the rest of his catalogue. A risky move, but one that has paid off in spades.