The front cover of Stefan Betke’s new album suggests (in perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek fashion) that a change is afoot.  Think back to early Pole: stark one colour covers refusing to overshadow the minimal glitch-dub therein.  Even the later releases with minor shifts in musical direction– the self-titled album, and 45/45 - the packaging remained mainly undecorated.   Steingarten on the other hand comes housed in packaging with an image of one of the most deliberately over-elaborate and hyper-detailed near-wonders of the world: one of King Ludwig’s Bavarian fantasy castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein. 

Flinging back the doors to Steingarten reveals, if not the opulent overload suggested by the cover, but at least that a few euros have been spent on some choice pieces by someone with quite an eye for detail.  Betke’s dubby roots, and the hip-hop stylings of 45/45 have been mostly discarded in the make-over in favour of some stripped down electro-funk, overlaid on occasion with, of all things, some feedbacky guitar noise.  Take first track “Warum”: rubbery 4 note guitar loop repeats in increasingly fuzzy fashion (reminding me of Emperor Tomato Ketchup era Stereolab) walking the track up to a pace where it can join “Winkelstreben”’s busy dubstep, which itself is eventually smeared by scrabbly six-string abuse.  “Achterbahn” is another highlight, built as it is around a naggingly scratchy Slits-ish sample.  It takes the woozy mellotron (can a mellotron be anything other than woozy?) of last track “Pferd” to remind you that you may in fact just have been listening to a Pole album.

Steingarten is an architectural gem, go dance about it.

Listen to “Warum” here.
Listen to more at Pole’s myspace and at ~scape