Creating Social Success

Uncommonly sophisticated progressive with a tinge of electro and more than a nod to Kraftwerk. The vibe is solidly German – for the most part, it lacks the sheen of recent top-shelf progressive, instead taking layers and adding to them gradually, creating a buildup-and-tease that keeps your attention unwavered. Trance Popper and Botox Party show a housier, booty-like groove while Hello Kitty has echoes of older-style “minimal” prog that you might have expected to find on POTS’ old label Sunset, or the much-missed Freeform stuff. Bravo and Dandy Division have an almost industrial, bundes-techno vibe that occasionally puts you in mind of Sensient, and Tussy De Luxe brings things to a a dreamy, fluid close. It all comes together nicely with Eifelgold: as confidently individual as anything on Ticon’s recent album, the layers are simply perfect and all conspire to make a cracking vacuum of prog that just squeezes you perfectly. It’s impressive, but there seems to be something missing: while the tracks are good, and the production is shiny, it seems to lack that certain organic “human-ness” that makes a lot of progressive so bloody amazing. In a sense, Creating Social Success is more like admiring a work of engineering or architecture than listening to something truly personal.