If their first, self-titled album was a the sound of a new project finding its feet – Robert and Ronald Lippok, and Stefan Schneider, playing music together for the first time as a trio, in association with an art exhibition – Veiculo is groundwork, To Rococo Rot figuring out the parameters of their music. You can hear that these musicians are informed by multiple contexts (post-rock, electronica, dance culture, modern art, indie pop) but there’s nothing particularly referential about it, and somehow, through combining familiar elements, Veiculo reads as sui generis. Robert Lippok’s electronics provide propulsion and colouration to knit together brother Ronald’s limber drums and Stefan Schneider’s simple bass riffs; the magic is in the way they work together, complementarily, yet with enough tension to keep the music tightly focused. Indeed, ‘focus’ is the key: these constructions of loops, textures, and plangent melodies are deftly poised, and edited with sharp clarity. It’s abstract, but with plenty of warmth.

– Jon Dale