- Epic, detailed house.
- On the rare occasion they're in the studio together, Sunao Gonno and Nick Höppner are focused. As Höppner told Hyponik, "I don't speak any Japanese, he [Gonno] doesn't speak any German and his English is kind of rudimentary… It was no talking, just work. Collaborating always has this dynamic that you don't want to waste your collaborator's time." Their previous EP together on Ostgut Ton, Fantastic Planet, was warmly received. A shared approach to making house music that's light in tone, heavy on melody and rich in texture allowed them to overcome the language barrier.
The bubbly "Start Trying" and mellower "Love Lost" are decent house tracks along these same lines of Fantastic Planet. Both are full of personality, if a little lightweight. They're overshadowed by "Bangalore," which is Höppner and Gonno's best collaboration yet. It has a free, through-composed feel that's unusual in house music. It's difficult to isolate the individual elements that make up the composition. Chimes, bubbling chords and gentle pads are smeared together, creating a lush texture with no clear melodic hook or chord progression. It's an approach that could have resulted in something extremely boring. Instead, we get a mesmerising, richly detailed 12 minutes of music. Towards the end, the layers fade away one by one and a German voice asks, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" It's like coming out of a trance.
TracklistA1 Bangalore
B1 Lost Love
B2 Start Trying