Vittoria Fleet – Greed
Greed is the second album by Berlin based Vittoria Fleet. The IDM couple of Allan Shotter and Giada Zerbo first met in East London before relocating to Germany’s artistic capital. Their debut album Acht was release by n5MD last year to general acclaim. Greed continues the duo’s evolution. Everything seemingly in Vittoria Fleet’s world is a juxtaposition. Male/female, digital/analogue, rhythm /harmony, human/machine, frost/fire. As you’d expect from anybody put out on n5MD these days the effect is ultra cool, with a heart. The emotional core remains vital.
From the abrasive electronics which signal the opening of Greed (‘Mother Ocean’) to the sci-fi gamer swirl of closing track ‘Summer Solstice’ there is craft on show here. Beats come crisp and glitch, vocals are of the ethereal variety (n5MD is truly this century’s 4AD). Put in layman’s terms, try to imagine Björk if she had been on WARP. The music puts me in mind of trip-hop (the Lamb, Portishead end of trip-hop) without ever quite being so though ‘Blue Drops’ is closest. The rest is more routed in classic IDM, but with the dark edginess of dubstep and trip-hop. The important thing to stress here is that Vittoria Fleet don’t sound the same as any of those aforementioned luminaries. They are reminiscent, because they are forging a distinct personality of their own in much the same way as those heavyweights. Plus, crucially, they have the potential to cross into the mainstream. I’m calling it folks. Yes, this is IDM, specialist, niche stuff…blah blah blah. Yet, listen to ‘Like Glue’. It’s a pop song. I sense it elsewhere too on Greed – i.e. Vittoria Fleet flirting with the idea of pop structures and sensibilities.
They main not be orientated fully toward the masses yet, but Greed is a progression from their debut album Acht. Certainly this is a more varied album overall than its predecessor. Little segues like ‘Sun’ work to brilliant effect, bridging the song-based pieces and mixing things up. For the most part Greed is eerily interesting, chilled without ever being cold. Penultimate stomper ‘Vampira’ sounds vaguely bonkers, in that ‘what did I just listen to?’ kind of way, but behind it all I suspect Vittoria Fleet know exactly what they are doing. They sound ahead of the game.
For me, personally, Greed is one of the wonderful surprises of the year. Coming so quickly after the last album, safe to say this impressed the Hell out of me.
This might just be what the robots will be listening to after the singularity.