Eloquence, The Complete Works’ is a compilation of ex-Kraftwerk percussionist Wolfgang Flür’s “pop” tunes from 2002 to today.

“I selected the tracks on ELOQUENCE to show the width of my artistic possibilities from lyric writing, melody development, working with my voice and my being involved in collaborations with interesting international artists” says Flür, continuing “With Kraftwerk, I was a drummer and device inventor. I only detected my own more melodic musicality after I left my former group. If Kraftwerk played minimal electro, then I now play ‘maximal electro’; for example, I have nothing against the sound of a trumpet in a song if it fits well, as in my track “Best Friend’s Birthday”. In this respect, ELOQUENCE charts my development from a drummer-boy to a melody inventor and story–telling man and it’s been a great journey for me which makes me happy.”

Since 2004, Flür has been presenting music in clubs and at festivals as the ‘Musik Soldat’ playing tech-house, industrial and electro works of his own as well as of Kraftwerk, Karl Bartos and other international artists who he’s friendly with which has led to some collaborations for the first getting an outing on Eloquence.
Eloquence opens with Robot which is edge of your seat driving electro pop with a vocoded vocal and it really does set the scene for what is to come. There is clearly a Kraftwerkesquness to Eloquence and it’s immediately identifiable with the band, but it’s also more accessible and more dance floor friendly. There’s some clever stuff amongst this collection and Moda Makina stands out as a successful fusing electronic and acoustic instruments.

Ok, this record is playing to my personal liking for all things electronic and club oriented, but it will appeal to others I’m sure. It’s at times on the softer and more accessible side of “techno” but it’s also interesting enough to hold the technohead’s interest and most definitely Teutonic in conception. That said,  Flür’s collaboration with Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto on ‘Staying In The Shadow’ manages to be “experimental” and yet poppy in equal measure.

There’s a feeling of some of the early European techno of Antler Subway such as on Axis Of Envy and this is a good thing but it goes further and beyond this. Best Friend’s Birthday is brilliant, disturbing and quite “funny”….and then you have Pleasure Lane which is much happier and more straightforward pop, though it has a brilliant bassline and vocal – a 5am comedown track if ever there was one.

There’s twelve tracks here and then a handful of remixes of some of the tracks and it’s all thriller and no filler. Out now and highly recommended.

Stuart Smith