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$15.99 CD
$21.99 LPx2+MP3
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ISOLEE
Well Spent Youth
(Pampa)
 "Journey's End"
"Hold On"
Success ain't always what it's cracked up to be. Or so they say. Case in point: Rajko Mueller. I feel for the guy. He released the landmark "Beau Mot Plage" back in 1998, a track that still gets played and still sounds fresh, and he hasn't been able to shake the elevated expectations that have been thrown at him ever since. If this sets you, dear reader, up for disappointment, let me not lead thee astray. The long-awaited return of Isolée, the sardonically titled Well Spent Youth -- his third album in 15-some-odd years and his first since 2005's We Are Monster -- finds him in fine, if somewhat sedated, form.
By sound and association, with Philip Sherburne's neologistic microhouse and other artists who defined the Playhouse label's sound (e.g., Losoul, Ricardo Villalobos), Mueller's music exists in that sweet liminal space between techno, dub, house and, by extension, kosmische, mutant disco and Balearic. In this, Mueller can be seen as a progenitor to labels like Carsten Jost's Dial (in fact, Mueller has just finished a 12" for the Hamburg imprint) and the label releasing this record, DJ Koze's Pampa.
His music is tactile to the point of bristling, though softly so. The not entirely distant echo of glitch (remember Mille Plateaux?) can be heard here. Dusty crackles, aquatic tides, accelerating chutes, and cavernous dub spaces are all trademarks of his sound. Which is to say, pumping through a system, there is something visceral at play. Still, these aren't exactly bangers. Then again, played at home, or perhaps in a café, it's also, dare I say, functional music. Music to work by. In either case, there is a head-down, hypnotized quality. "Thirteen Times an Hour" is a highpoint, a classic microhouse burner, or at least as close as Mueller gets to such a thing on Well Spent Youth. "Paloma," with its dislocated clunk-funk bassline, could link the disparate but not entirely unrelated worlds of Liquid Liquid and Sun Araw in an out DJ set. "Transmission" pays homage to Detroit and Dusseldorf, conjuring visions of Drexciya, Kraftwerk and Juan Atkins.
In a sense though, these tracks don't define the album. If any characteristic shifts have taken place, Well Spent Youth is less defined by dub than his earlier recordings, and there is a shift toward introspective, if occasionally dated house tropes. Or is the sound of 1998 back? However, if there are some lapses -- the opening strains of "Celeste" or on closer "In Our Country" -- they are in the minority. A simple defense might be that Mueller's made an album of tracks that each work in different environments. To these ears, Isolee is best head-down, charging forward. Well Spent Youth may not be accompanied by the hype that comes with a newer artist -- say John Roberts, Efdemin or Pantha Du Prince -- but it stands up as a solid piece, imperfections notwithstanding. The shorthand then? Is there anything as jaw-dropping as "Beau Mot Plage?" No. Is this a good record? Yes. [AGe]
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