Urlaub In Polen All

It has been nine years since Urlaub in Polen announced they were disbanding with the release of their fifth album Boldstriker. However, drummer Jan Philipp Janzen and multi-instrumentalist and singer Georg Brenner have always made up one of those rare and highly unlikely bands who, despite market laws to the contrary, have put the context of their own work above fads and opportunity without ever denying that they inhabit a particular historical moment. On All, their unexpected sixth album, it becomes immediately clear that the term »reunion«, at least in the sense we’ve gotten used to, does not do justice to this particular ocurance. All is light years away from offering a lukewarm rehashing of ancient recipes for success - the album is highly ambitious and sounds fresh in its concentrated performance—not unlike a debut. This is because the considerable advantages of a long-term musical relationship are at display throughout the record. Not only with regards to the tightness of performance, which was and is every bit as unbelievable as everyone says, particularly those who have been privy to their ecstatic live performances, but also regarding a level of musical familiarity withone another; a rare feat that has always carried the band’s musical explorations, and which balances the dynamics and structures of All as a whole. This interplay is accentuated by the record’s production, for which Janzen (among others a founding member part of Von Spar, current drummer of Die Sterne and producer of Die Sterne, The Field, PTTRNS, Albrecht Schrader etc.) and Brenner are also responsible.

Urlaub in Polen have also always been a band that defies categorization. All is probably their most formally coherent album so far, but it is nevertheless anything but a work of genre: What the songs on All have in common is an architecture evoking Krautrock, developing sprawling synthesizer and guitar workouts on the foundations of finely woven rhythm arrangements. The echoes of West Coast Pop (the harmonies and the bass!), of Rhineland Tech House and of early Dire Straits (the vocals and the guitar production!) make All a characteristically versatile and international affair. The album shares with their previous efforts the interest and attention for sonic textures and contrasts, but showcases more constraint and focus. In place of noise, details and the enormous joy of playing between Brenner and Janzen come to the fore, equally in the stoic Desert Kraut hits »Impulse Response« and »THDT,« the polyrhythmic »Overall«, or the discoid »Proxy Music.« All as a musical statement thus bears witness to the fact that Urlaub in Polen’s artistic vision is not centred by musical niche or content, but by formal considerations and the ever new presence of playing together: All, in this sense, stands for nothing more and nothing less than the latest expansion of their oeuvre.