Drei Farben House: Any Kind of Feeling

With surgical precision and a more restrained pop sense then Force Tracks labelmate Luomo, Drei Farben House’s Michael Siegle blueprints sleek, sparse tech-house like it’s his second nature. Every beat, bass blurt, and synth stab rests precisely in its place, complemented easily by Siegle’s dispassionate yet still distinctly human vocals. Their general delivery vaguely resembles that of Erlend Øye’s, occasionally recalling a less adventurous Röyksopp with lounge tendencies curtailed. Overall, though, Drei Farben House seems to stick a little to close to the initial blueprints. Despite a few promising variations in the latter half of the album, like latent tribal influences coming into focus on “Breathe”, the stripped-down beats never veer far from formula and rarely surprise. Any Kind of Feeling is still skillfully handled throughout, and consistently suffused with a hypnotically icy production, but seems content to drift on its laurels a little too much. To quote Siegle’s own lyrics, “It’s not that I’m not satisfied, I just want something bigger…”