Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Kate Hutchinson

Colder: The Rain and Goodbye review – kraut-punk-dub for Lynchian dancefloors

Colder AKA Marc Nguyen Tan
Urgent repetition … Colder AKA Marc Nguyen Tan

Unlike contemporaries such as Trevor Jackson, whose early-2000s label Output he was once signed to; Ivan Smagghe, with whom he was associated in electroclash’s heyday; and Andrew Weatherall and his clear affinity for krautrock, post-punk and dub, Colder’s Marc Nguyen Tan has never quite reached boiling point. Perhaps this double album will bring the French producer – who ended a 10-year hiatus last year – some of the recognition he deserves. Goodbye’s 60s lounge-bop and rockabilly noir sounds like what you’d hear on the Double R diner stereo; Rain, however, is chillier, more unsettling and, in the case of the breathy All Along the Way, trés sexy. Mango Coconut underlines his knack for desert whammy twangs and the urgent repetition of a lone, cold bass note; there’s textured ambience on Market Day, like a bonfire crackling on a glacier, and on Re501 Friday Night, with its sense of industrial dread. Other tracks, meanwhile, suggest Suicide slinking up to Can on a smoke-filled dancefloor. David Lynch fans should be lining up.

• This article was amended on 6 July. Due to an editing error, an earlier version suggested this was Colder’s first album in 10 years. That was 2015’s Many Colours.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.