Kammerflimmer Kollektief

I always misremember KK as being a much more electronics-dependent band, and so Wildling, with its graceful drum work and throaty stand-up bass, introduces itself with a gentle reorientation. Perhaps it's that an acoustic pulse, handed down from Teutonic forebears like Can and Cluster, stewards the fugitive strands of jazz much like a digital beat would. Vocalist Heike Wendelin blurs languages and sometimes abandons them completely in a kind of post-modern scatting, with a delivery that sits somewhere between Nico and Beth Gibbons. The songs are impossible to tag with simple definitions, often compiling disparate elements such as drone rock, chansonnier and Japanese pop into an alloy of times and cultural referents. The low-key delivery makes this abundance very easy to absorb and each listen manages to catch your ear with an instrumental combination you hadn't noticed before. Wildling is simultaneously the group's most ambitious and most successful effort to date.