Apparat Organ Quartet

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5...according to our Mike on Fri 11 Nov, 2011.

Ever since the promo of this turned up in the office a couple of weeks back I've been well excited about this one dropping, and I'll most certainly be taking the vinyl home with me tonight. You'll know Johann Johannsson best as Iceland's leading minimal composer, but on this here record he's playing with four (and not three as one might naturally assume) of his friends. These guys are crazy. Four synth players and a drummer, they obsessively collect synthesisers to add to their arsenal of live sounds, and they don't use sequencers or computers - every note on this record was played live on a keyboard! The live drums give it awesome momentum in a Trans Am-ish kind of way, but the brightness of the tones and the brazen chirpiness of the melodies brings to mind Daft Punk's more inspired moments. This is a band who have apparently been influenced by both Kraftwerk and Motorhead, a bold claim which seems to be borne out by the pulsating synth-rock of Pentatronik which is bringing to mind underrated Scots Kling Klang. There's another rock-out in 'Sirius Alfa' that brings to mind the underexposed modern day midi genius that is Iron Pirate. This album is mostly instrumental and when there are vocals they're all processed and vocoded, much like the vocals on the aforementioned TA's recently-reissued 'Futureworld'. If you're already a fan of Johannsson's work as a composer then this album will surprise and delight you, discarding his serious and beautiful atmospheres with a huge great chunk of lovingly-constructed synthpop fun. I've heard that these guys have people on the inside in their local rubbish dumps to inform them when someone disposes of a synthesiser, so seriously do they take their art. Rarely is such care and attention mixed with such childlike bombast. I love this record.

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Hailing from Reykjavik, Iceland, Apparat Organ Quartet is, despite the name, a 5 piece band: 4 keyboardists and 1 drummer. They sometimes describe their music as "Machine Rock and Roll", and indeed the band's sound veers between danceable floor-fillers and headbanging anthems, all served with a mixture of Kraftwerk-inspired electronics fused with Daft Punk-like Robot voices and hard-rock drumbeats, with beautifully melancholic melodies soaring over the whole mix. Effortlessly switching between the dancefloor and the mosh-pit, AOQ at times sounds like a more danceable Motorhead - if they had been born in Dusseldorf, and plugged Moogs into their Marshall amps instead of guitars. The band is not afraid of echoing the epic grandeur of 70's and 80's stadium
rock, but this is always tempered by the band's metronomic Krautrock sensibilities.
Every note in Apparat Organ Quartet is hand-played, there is not a sequencer or computer in sight. In concert and on record, the band plays keyboards from their extensive collection of Jurassic analog machinery, including Russian synths and customized home organs, ARP's, Farfisas, malfunctioning Hammonds, vocoders and various circuit-bent Casios and Portasounds.
Their influences include Kraftwerk, Neu, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Trans Am, Giorgio Moroder, Ramones, Stereolab, Goblin, Italian horror movie soundtracks, Philip Glass, Terry Reilly, J.S. Bach and Haendel, as well as all kinds of 70's and 80's synth-drenched film music.
Apparat Organ Quartet released their first album in 2002. Although it enjoyed only a limited release, the album received enthusiastic praise from critics and has since built up a sizable cult following. It took the band 8 whole years to record the follow-up, Pólýfónía "Now this you have to like… …deadpan Icelanders playing like a clockwork replica of the Glitter Band intoning the vocodered slogan "Stereo Rock & Roll" like a catechism" - The Guardian, "A pulsing electronic drone… ….hints of Kraftwerk, Wagner, Sigur Rós and terrifying prog rock bands from the dark ages" Ian Watson – NME "Terry Reilly meets Stereolab" The Wire

Myfavoutitedress said:

wow this LP is fantastical! I to LOVE this record. Added to wishlist and a certain purchase for sure. More please
Stuart of Swindon

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