Description:	LP on Domino
	Format:	LP (vinyl)
	Genre(s):	Electronica / IDM
	Label:	Domino
	Price:	£8.19
	Availability:	Sold out / currently unavailable. Sorry!

4
...according to our Phil on 18 October 2007.

To Rococo Rot have released an album based around the Helvetica typeface. You've either stopped reading by now or you're desperately interested in wondering how they can string a 20 minute mini album together based on a typeface. Well if you didn't know it was anything to do with a typeface then you certainly wouldn't be able to tell listening to the music. Not one single note has made me think of that startling font. Anyway it's 8 tracks of To Rococo's bleepy electronics... there's some nice rhythms in there and I'd say it's one of their better releases as the melodies sound pretty strong. I thought it sounded a bit like Kraftwerk at the end! Surprisingly recommended!

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What their label says...

To Rococo Rot return with their first new material since ‘Hotel Morgen’. Spontaneous and full of urgency, TRR manage eight songs in 21 minutes; inspired by the classic Helvetica typeface. Arising out of a commission which relates to the 50th anniversary of the enduring Helvetica typeface, To Rococo Rot finally reconvene to make some new music which has very little in common with their most recent ‘Hotel Morgen’ set.  If ‘Hotel Morgen’ seemed very much a continuation of the TRR aesthetic, all linear patterns and analogue warmth, ‘abc 123’ goes for something more spontaneous; a quicker, more digital kind of fun.   
To write songs by way of the alphabet, TRR took the decision to abandon their usual set up which includes drums, bass, and analogue synths, and instead compose only on computer, with only one old favourite piece of kit - Ronald's Yamaha vss30.  
The conciseness of the mini-album format, eight songs in 21 minutes, is comparable to 1980’s Dusseldorf punk band, Mittagpause, who released an 11 song double 7" which always made TRR feel they’d had a total listening experience absolutely at odds with the running time.  
Simply paying homage to a design classic like Helvetica would not really be the TRR way; instead they seem to draw inspiration from the familiarity / blankness of the format and imagine it as a whole new alphabet.  In a way this is why Helvetica is the perfect typeface to move forward with and why it is open to the kind of new possibilities which are suggested on this engaging, engaged mini-album.