We Are Monster

In the wide world of underground house and techno, the airy, abstract, angular productions on Isolée’s (Rajko Müller) 2005 album We Are Monster have travelled a long way from house music’s raw, sweaty, intense, disco roots. Largely free from funk, jack and grit, the songs here are ultra-processed, highly luminous, super-sleek audio vehicles. Euro synth, electro and new wave influences serve as mere musical jump-off points for Müller to build hybrid dancefloor productions that zoom in on surface sheen, texture and timbre and the moods they can evoke. Even when he introduces overdrive or distortion in the sounds, like in the guitar-y “Today” or the gnarly sombre bass wobble of “Face B,” it sounds like each degree of distortion was carefully mixed and balanced to the nth degree. We Are Monster doesn’t so much quote older genres but re-tool them via Müller’s very specific approach — clipped, clean, crisp, efficient, sparse, detailed, tight — to achieve moments of surprising musical freedom and electronic studio looseness. Intriguing and eclectic minimalism.