Gesamtkunstwerk

Gesamtkunstwerk is Detroit electro pretending to be German scientists, funnier and colder than it looks, Dopplereffekt building a clinical, deadpan, genuinely strange record. It's electro with a conceptual wit, the machine music pushed toward something almost satirical without losing its chill. It ranks at a hundred and fifty-one because the concept can overshadow the tracks, but the tracks are sharp and the humour is real, and nobody else made electro quite this dryly funny.