Kompakt Germany
2006
Victimizer
About This Album
Going strong for roughly half a decade now -- albeit in a woozy, lurching, semi-sullen fashion -- Mikkel Meldgaard has been one of the most prolific and visible producers to follow up on the visions of Berlin's Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, at least when it comes to the sides of those labels that were all but entirely disconnected from the dancefloor. Meldgaard has been central to Copenhagen's Echocord and had some of his vinyl tracks for that label compiled for 2005's Close Selections, and Victimizer works similarly, using tracks that were issued on Kompakt singles, but it's more reliant on new material. Even without the indicative title, it's evident that the album is something like a Berlin-style dub analogue to Depeche Mode's Violator. Its moody temperament and placid-kinetic basslines, along with the spaces between the beats and the subtle deployment of Teutonic blues guitar, have a way of resembling ambient versions of "World in My Eyes," "Personal Jesus," and "Halo." In other words, if Violator were stripped of anything approaching a grand gesture -- actually, anything approaching a clear gesture -- and had its rhythms swollen and slowed, with added textural effects, it might sound a lot like this.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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