MODELBAU – HONOURS (10″ Lathe by Spaltung)
MODELBAU – KOPF AB (CDr by Licht-Ung)

No, again, I am not going to introduce Modelbau to you. It’s Frans, and you all know that. But you don’t know that on the final day of 2023, I got two new releases to review in my mailbox! What a way to end 2023. This last month, I could hardly work and was definitely unable to make music myself due to a broken humerus. So, to be able to write again and write about some nice music was a very nice way to close my activities this year.
The first one is a 10″ lathe in a limited edition of 21 on the Licht-Ung sublabel Spaltung. A 10″ means that if done properly, it will fit approximately 10 minutes per side, which is the case here. The plastic contains some very deep sounds with which Modelbau proves to be one of the masters of LoFi ambient. The tracks are untitled, so I’m just diving in here …
Damn, this is some minimal stuff here, wow. The layering on these tracks is meticulously done. There is movement in the lows, mids and highs, and even though there is a discrepancy in the origin of the movements, they all sync perfectly and form a gorgeous drone. And that is done on both sides. So I’ll just describe this review as “If you want to start 2024 with a bang, don’t think twice as this item will sell out within a few days after publication.
One thing that is super weird for me is this: ‘Normally,’ when I listen to drones of this kind, I lose track of time, and a ten-minute piece will come to me afterwards as “This was only ten minutes? Seemed way longer!” But the tracks on “Honours” made me check the time after a few minutes because I simply couldn’t believe they were still playing. So after four minutes, I checked, and the needle wasn’t even halfway there!!! I think it has something to do with the movement of sounds in the lower regions. The small pulsation there somehow messes with the perspective of time in a way that I never noticed before. Very, very well done this one.
The second Modelbau is on Spaltung’s mother label, Licht-Ung, labels operated by Milan Sandbleistift. He not only releases some great music but also makes it himself, and he organizes really amazing events in Leverkusen. Check the links at the bottom and invest some time exploring his activities.
But back to why we’re here, Modelbau’s “Kopf Ab”. A 40-minute CDr in an edition of 31, so when you are ordering the 10″ lathe, you might as well include a copy of this one, too, because it will save you on postage, and you will want to have this one too. The two releases are really entirely different. Where “Honours” was fragile in nature, “Kopf Ab” is like a harsh ambient structure that relentlessly penetrates your mind. The seed of the drone is planted in your brain, and in 20 minutes, it changes ever so slowly into, well, silence. Throbbing, pulsating, mixed into the front of the audio spectrum. And that’s just the first piece! The second piece follows the same road but is a bit less outspoken in the choice of sounds. So don’t get me wrong, it’s still a beauty, but I think I kinda fell in love with that first piece.
As said in the beginning of the review, what a bloody fukkin great way to end 2023. And for you guys and girls to start 2024! (BW) Vital Weekly