Music Is A Hungry Ghost

It’s tempting to say that Music Is A Hungry Ghost is unique in To Rococo Rot’s career, though each of their albums is its own singularity. But it’s certainly a curious collection of pieces. If they’d found their voice with The Amateur View, on Music Is A Hungry Ghost, the trio look for ways to disrupt the elegant, streamlined electronica they had become known for. To that end, they brought in New York turntablist Craig Willingham aka i-Sound as collaborator for the entire album, and invited classical violinist Alexander Balanescu to guest on two tracks, the first of which, “From Dream To Daylight”, is the album’s highlight, Balanescu’s weepy strings threading between Schneider’s paced, reflective bassline and the Lippok brothers’ pointillist patterning for electronics and percussion. But it’s i-Sound’s contributions that linger longest – he injects unpredictability into the quartet compositions, the grit and burr of his noisier interruptions pushing the trio into more improvisatory territory.