Objects Beings & Parrots [LP]

Urlaub In Polen - Objects Beings & Parrots [LP]

LP version. More than two decades after their formation, Urlaub in Polen continue to celebrate an aesthetic of transience -- an experience bounded by time, poured into the project's very name -- set against a continuous flow of new impressions and a suitcase slowly filling with memorabilia. After a longer hiatus, their 2020 album All (TR 461CD marked a return with a warped take on krautrock, a direction which their new release Objects, Beings and Parrots both follows and expands upon. In true eclectic tradition, it ventures further into diverse genre territories -- always exploratory, yet never losing its thread. Multi-instrumentalist Georg Brenner and drummer Jan Philipp Janzen blaze a trail through a dense web of references (see also the cover collage merging tile selections, retro interior suggestions, and archaeology textbook cutouts), evoking a warm feeling of being taken along for the ride -- even as the band refuses to be pinned down to any clear musical category. Take the opener, "Abacus": kicking off with a drum machine and subtle guitar flourishes, it already nods -- title included -- to the mechanical, forward-clicking motorik sound of first-generation krautrock. Then it takes a turn, morphing into a grooving jam with increasingly dense sound layers, howling guitars, and the band's signature clipped vocal phrases -- calling to mind flashes of '90s noise rock. Next up on this winding path: a washing machine -- here manifested in layers of wide synth textures, crashing drums, distorted guitars, and vocals that end in a staccato-like cough. It's a shaking, rattling trip through a cosmos of self-willed machinery and a comforting embrace of imperfection. And so the transformation continues: sometimes as wavering retrofuturism ("Fame & Fortune"), sometimes as surprisingly melodic acoustic pop -- complete with a woodland brass solo ("Jaki's Love Time") -- and always through the weaving of finely crafted rhythmic repetitions with sonic experimentation. The Objects, Beings and Parrots in this flow form vague images, points of orientation and pause: at once recognizable elements drawn from pop and art history, and yet as fleeting and abstract as the track that shares their name. You can hear the album's decelerated genesis: after a lengthy writing phase, the tracks were recorded across multiple sessions at the secluded MARS Studio in Germany's Eifel region. The result is a trippy, self-contained celebration of persistence -- of pushing forward, without excluding moments of stillness, and with the occasional glance in the rear-view mirror. 
01. Abacus
02. Washing Machine
03. Opposite Day
04. Fame & Fortune
05. Face Of Reason
06. Objects, Beings & Parrots
07. Jaki's Love Time
08. Moonwalk
09. Yours