There’s an abundance of electronic music in Berlin whose obsessive, minute variation on a pounding rhythm often makes this American wonder what people are finding to get so excited about in beats that have about as much soul as a pace-maker. Not true of KREIDLER, the band you’ll want to see when you come here to check out the clubs.

Their secret—like starting off a soup with a good stock—is their live drums. It’s hard to see what could go bad on top of these warm, rich, intelligent and—at the risk of stretching this cooking metaphor—nourishing rhythms that actually energize you to move, rather than extract your participation with a mounting promise only to end it in empty volume. In general this live warmth is what sets their sound apart from other things in the genre—there’s something about it that makes you feel it's aware of you—that the songs are constructed around more than just their own interior logic. As if to prove the point at their most recent show in Berlin, at Prater, they asked hesitantly several times between songs to have the lights up so that they could see the audience. The theater is a great venue visually, but maybe because of its size and seating, was lacking a connection between stage and audience so important to their sound.

Their new album, recorded over a week of live sessions, is available October 5 as a CD and download from Italic records. Listen to them also on Myspace and find them on tour here.

Posted by Catherine Despont, catherine@greenowl.com