Geiger: Out of Tune
Firm
Alexander Geiger follows 12-inch releases on the Schaeben/Voss/Geiger-run Firm label with his debut full-length Out of Tune, but getting a handle on the Cologne-based artist is no small challenge, given the album's extreme stylistic profusion. Funk, techno, electronica, disco, guitar rock, folk-pop, microhouse—that they're all present wouldn't be an issue if they were delivered effectively, but alas that's not the case. The album's moments of promise are dragged down by average songwriting; while the arrangements are fine, the material they're dressing up is neither distinguished nor particularly memorable, a flaw amply illustrated by “Bless The Lord.” Opening in Pop Ambient mode with sweeping, heaving strings, Geiger adds slow-motion beats, electric guitar accents, and hushed vocals to push it into a more dramatic song-based zone. The only problem? It's an elaborate arrangement for a merely passable and melodically unmemorable song. Press info cites Justus Kohncke's Doppelleben as a reference but the key difference is that it's filled with hook-filled songs you want to hear repeatedly; Out of Tune isn't.
The better moments in Geiger's travelogue include: smoothly percolating electro-microhouse (“Hot Body”), acoustic folk-pop in a T. Rex-Donovan style (“Love Song”), and chunky, disco-flavoured tech-house featuring Geiger's soft soul falsetto and electric guitar playing (“Cocain-e”). Rather less enthralling moments include “Sunday,” which alternates between anarchistic Cobra Killer-styled punk-pop and techno-soul, and “Five Years,” which likewise alternates hushed vocal pop with stadium-sized guitar-rock. If there's one thing that helps connect the dots, it's Geiger's guitar playing which surfaces throughout in raunchy form, whether paired with piano-based synth-funk (“Yeah”) or, incongruously, synth-boosted tech-house (“Studio Star”). Yes, Geiger eschews boundaries for a panorama of styles but perhaps he might be wise to determine what he does best and focus on refining it to a further degree.
July 2005
