Heavily rotated (as they say) with a series of promo 12s, the CD of 11 tracks is now out and kicks off with their previous killer ‘Baby3’ from April 2003! ‘Baby 3’ was a departure from the jazzy breaks of their first two singles (not included) and it doesn’t sound dated at all to me; albeit its “ahhhhs” and jazzy keys merge into a kind of nu-disco house where Dr. Who meets Roger Troutman in Detroit.

‘Baby 3’ really sets the tone not just because it’s a high quality boogie. Much of the reviews to date have made great play of the fact that all the tracks on the CD are all at the same 125bpm tempo. Now you might think that would make for a dull album. Well it doesn’t as the Roger Troutman tribute, ‘Roger’, proves.

‘Bounce’ overdoes the vocoder a little, satisfying any eighties revivalist tendencies, but ‘All I Need’ takes it further with a mix of synth guitar riffs and electro strings on a runaway train; if this isn’t big at G-A-Y, I’ll eat my tent!

Going over the top eh? You won’t think so. Even more Detroit rail-transit a la Kraftwerk on ‘Keep The Drums Out’, ‘Logan’ and ‘Oggi’. ‘Best Friend’ is back in the handclap nu-jazz-disco (nice keyboards if a little too Hall & Oates).

I was eager to hear some sound clips of the tracks on the internet but you need the album to appreciate the skill of these Euro Detroit techno soul house disco boogie masters. Currently playing on their myspace site are ‘Baby3’, ‘Bounce’ and ‘Sao Verought’ (see links below). When it gets going, ‘Sao Verought’ is a broken electro workout with phat sexy grunts, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! So good.

The album finishes on a couple of comparatively low notes. ‘Urwald’ is German for “virgin forest” can be left alone as it’s a token downtempo electro dub track whilst the last track is a vocoder wander into the trees.

This is more than acceptable as Studio !K7’s 199th release; we’ve featured many of the artists that were on the 150th compilation CD (blimey that was also three years ago) so I’m expecting something equally as good on the 200th release; great label out of Berlin.

Hectic Mix nomination: If not the classic ‘Baby 3’, ‘Roger’. But if that’s not getting played to death, ‘Oggi’ or any of the other first nine tracks. Top album for 2 weeks now!

• Jun 3 2006 Roland Appel & Peter Kruder, Fabric, London
• Jul 9 2006 Roland Appel & Christian & Peter Kruder Montreux
• Jul 21 2006 Roland Appel & Christian Prommer, Gent
• Aug 8 2006 Roland Appel & Christian Prommer, Saalburg

Reviewed: Voom:Voom - Peng Peng (Studio !K7) Cat. No. K7199CD Release Date: May 2006
Tracklisting:
1. Baby 3 (6:40)
2. Roger (8:08)
3. Bounce (5:12)
4. All I Need (5:55)
5. Keep the Drums Out (5:05)
6. Logan (6:31)
7. Best Friend (7:15)
8. Sao Verought (8:19)
9. Oggi (7:13)
10. Urwald Song (3:08)
11. Vampir Song (6:56)

Links:
http://www.myspace.com/voomvoom
www.k7.com
Roger Troutman/Zapp
Gilles Peterson Worldwide: Tracklisting 5th Februay 2006 Bilal live In Session & Dudley Perkins, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Rahel Live In Session :
(24) Voom Voom - ‘Sao Verought’ (K7)
www.g-a-y.co.uk