EROC - IV

now this isn't anywhere as crazy as it looks. you see a man wearing a winter cardigan, headbutting a xylaphone in what looks like a cave and you would be forgiven for thinking 'this is going to spazz.' it does not 'spazz'.

rather misleadingly we have a strictly spazz free ambient/accordian x-over album and bad as it sounds, it's actually quite enjoyable.

eroc is the guy that used to roll with 'krautrockers' GROBSCHNITT, i use '' because people seem to label everything to come out of germany between 1969 and 1983 as krautrock. i'm pretty sure there are qualifying factors other than ethnicity otherwise strictly speaking ACCEPT are also krautrock. anyway, much as i enjoy the genre i do not know specifically what defines it, i mean, when does it start to become 'rock' rock, 'prog' rock or plain shit? from my listenings GROBSCHNITT undoubtedly also fall into the latter sub-genre.

anyway, onto eroc, formerly a member of said band. this is very different to EROC 1 and 2 which are quirky, 'krauty' and interspersed with spoken sound-bites.

when i first put this on i walked off to the kitchen and started doing kitchen stuff, unloading the dishwasher, wondering why the hob looked so dirty and trying to find a mysterious odour. then i was distracted by the music, something i had put on with the full intention of it being 'background'.

you really don't expect something 'pretty' to live within this sleeve but it does. eroc IV is like the soundtrack to some romantic parisienne adventure. listening to it i am wearing a black and white striped sweater and chewing on some french bread between hearty swigs of red wine. i am having sex with a particularly enthusiastic french girl in islington back in 2000, i am on a camping holiday with my family in marseille aged 12, a few years later i am backpacking and drunk wondering how long 100 francs will last me if i factor in buying pornography...

then the music stops and the smell from the sink brings me back to 2009.

for a long time i resisted buying anything from this guy for two reasons, first that fact that his previous band was so underwhelming and second because of his name. E ROC: he always sounded like some particularly bad circa 87 west coast rapster. anyway, i'm glad i got over both of those sticking points because much as this seems to be sidelined in favour of the guys first two or three albums its really rather good even if it is sadly spazz free.

whilst i do fully endorse EROC IV i cannot guarantee that listening to it will make you think you are having sex with an attractive french girl.