Digipack. Berlin duo The/Das release their sophomore album, Exit Strategies, on Life And Death. The absorbing 12-tracker is the result of a period of searching that finds the new line-up of Fabian Fenk and Philipp Koller combine multiple ideas, layers, fragments and sounds and refine their distinct idea of techno tenderness. It makes for a soothing and escapist 60 minute listen that works as well at home, on headphones, as it does loud in the club. The new album is a perfect blend of the pair’s Berlin techno roots with a devotion to organic sounds and cinematic details that makes it a real trip for the head, heart and heel from start to finish. More house influenced than their previous works on labels like Sinnbus, Krakatau and DJ Tennis’s Life And Death, their artistic vision ties it all together as the duo continues to push each other, bounce ideas back and forth and eventually distill them into something fresh and new. The album itself was an unhurried affair made from various sketched starting points collected over three years of research. Influenced from their travels, a decade of DJ gigs and shared musical experiences, they then headed into the studio for three intense months to arrange, rework, jam out new material, edit and collate all their sounds and ideas. Finally, they spent three weeks behind the mixing desk, shaping the whole lot into one complete form. Made using an array of drum machines and with a new focus on sampling, the album has experimental loops, sounds and rhythms imbued within, and lyrics that act as textural and emotive interventions, adding to the overall flow
