One of the greatest clichés in pop journalism has to be the so-called 'growth picture', which gets better with every turn. But what do you call a CD that seems to fascinate less with every spin? A good example is the third album by Berlin-based Moderat, a particularly successful collaboration between electronics duo and Sascha Ring, better known as . At the first turn, the combination of
… Moderselektor's sparse techno and Ring's gentle R&B vocals sounds interesting, even intriguing at times. You think that tastes like more. But that 'more' just does not come. The main reason is that most of the songs on III keep rippling on - with crazy, funny and sometimes pretty nice sounds - but never take off, like with a colleague like . It is no coincidence that the strongest (and shortest) song, Running, is strongly reminiscent of his released two years earlier . But otherwise III goes into the books as… shrink plate? (RME)more