Unhappybirthday - Stella Loops

  by Adrian Janes

published: 8 / 11 / 2022

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unhappybirthday are an electronica band from Hamburg. Centred around Daniel Jahn (keyboards/vocals) and Tobias Rutkowski (guitar), here they’re augmented by the keyboards and programming of Jonas Meyer (who also provides the clean, clear production), and a range of guest vocalists. ‘Stella Loops’ is their fifth record, and purportedly draws inspiration from sci-fi, though only the title of the album and a few of its tracks (‘Eolomea’, a 1972 Eastern European film set in space, ‘Nova’ and ‘Transit’) immediately suggest this to the non-German listener. Yet even after 40 years or so of synth-led music, the electronic keyboards and percussion that predominate in this music still have the aura of a shining technological future. At the same time, rarer elements in electronica, notably the wistful stardust scatterings of Rutkowski’s guitar, discreetly distinguish unhappybirthday from the robotic herd. It’s a creative approach that also leads to the delicate flute solo of Bureau B’s Jimi Tenor on ‘Jimmy’, eloquent amidst a dialogue of synths, telephone dialtone and what sounds like a Japanese speaker engaged in one end of a conversation. There is an air of reticence about much of the album, whether it be the restrained vocals (as on ‘Nova’ or ‘Luxor’), the distant place in the mix where the guitar is found on ‘Überall’ and ‘Transit’, or the traces of melody beyond the surface that are intermittently hinted at. Some effort is made to counteract this impression, for instance the prowling bass of ‘Eolomea’ and its more solid cousin on ‘Gus’ (a sort of coyer ‘Blue Monday’), and the change from a breezy opening to something grimmer on ‘Lass Uns Überlegen’. (Its English translation, “Let’s think about it”, could almost be this introverted band’s motto.) The yearning mood of ‘Phantom’, which deploys a flute-like synth, subtle bass, male and female voices and a breath of vocals that evokes Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’, perhaps best sums up the way in which unhappybirthday’s uncluttered arrangements yet encapsulate quite a lot of musical incident. If overall ‘Stella Loops’ is a bit too restrained to reach the stars, more is certainly going on than at first seems to be the case. unhappybirthday appear like the shy hosts of their own party – if not its life, deep down they are its soul.

Track Listing:-

1 Nova
2 Überall
3 Eolomea
4 Gus
5 Transit
6 Lass uns überlegen
7 Luxor
8 Phantom
9 Jimmy

Label Links:-

http://www.tapeterecords.de/
https://www.facebook.com/tapeterecords
https://twitter.com/tapete
https://www.youtube.com/user/tapeterecords/videos

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