Outside the first autumn storms are swirling the leaves around in the backyard, the time has come to turn the heating on full blast. Nevertheless the sun still has enough power, and it's a damned good feeling to button up your duffel coat again for the first time and to wrap up in your long scarf. ?OCTOBER LOVE SONG? is the perfect soundtrack for a day like this and yet the writer has to look into the future. After all this is an info sheet, namely one for REWORK's first album, ?FALL RIGHT NOW?, which unfortunately will not be available to the public until February 2003. An info sheet, so let's get straight down to the hard facts: Rework, a trio at first, now becoming a quartet, consist of LAETITIA, DANIEL VARGA, MICHAEL K܂LER and new singer CARO. Laetitia is French, from Normandy, Caro comes from the south of France, Daniel and Michael have Hungarian roots, but are at home in Stuttgart. As a result of other projects, the latter two have long made a name for themselves in the electronic scene: Michael, alias Re Styles, records music for the Stuttgart-based label PAVLEK RECORDS. Daniel used to be a member of the Cybordelics and together with Frank W?er set up the BORNEO & SPORENBURG project who stormed the dancefloors with ?This Is Music Added To My Day? and conquered our living rooms with their ?Remember Today? album. Their first release as Rework appeared in autumn 2000 in the form of a 4-track EP featuring the songs ?REWORK?, ?ANYWAY I KNOW YOU?, ?EATING DISORDER? and ?VERY?. Back then Michael's green Moog and Daniel's Juno 60 already pumped powerful, pulsating dub house waves through the speakers and two of the tracks featured Laetitia's inimitable voice. ?Concentrated, uncompromising funk? is what my fellow writer Bleed wrote in De-Bug, but basically the threesome initially got us all into a state with this release. ?REWORK? as the programmatic first track on the project's first EP ? pah! Back then it was already self-evident that Rework was not ?just? a first-rate minimal techhouse act. On ?ANYWAY I KNOW YOU? Laetitia's vocals were still looped and massive effects embedded them into the overall hypnotic, bass-laden synth sound as a very unique element, but nonetheless one of more or less equal status. Yet on Rework's second EP, released in May 2001, you got a clearer indication of the direction Rework were really heading. ?LOIN DE MOI?, the opening track, was by no means less club-compatible than the songs on their debut work, but it was already more than obvious that Laetitia's vocals, now sung in French, had emancipated themselves from the usual female vocal samples. The title track ?SAY HEY? came as a surprise: which parts are looped, which a jazzy live improvisation over an instrumental the way St. Germain jazz diseuses have cultivated for decades? The B-side's ?AMOUREUSE?, which charmingly reminds you of ?The Cure live in Orange? and Jane Birkin, then completely unmasked Rework: this was certainly not mere dancefloor fodder. It's about pop music, sometimes to dance to, sometimes to dream to, sometimes to sing along to! Accordingly, the new LP, ?FALL RIGHT NOW?, is equally eclectic. The album begins with the fierce club stomper ?YOU'RE SO JUST JUST? released as an advance single release in November 2002. Who's dominating who? In any case it won't surprise anyone who's heard the track that when it comes to ?sexy accents? French women are even exploited in beer commercials. ?NOT QUITE LIKE ANY OTHER? is pleasantly reminiscent of this other Francophile trio, Saint Etienne, though with her husky, slightly off-key sounding vocals Laetitia sounds more like Nico P䦦gen than Sarah Cracknell. The next piece, ?OCTOBER LOVE SONG? (a cover version of a CHRIS & COSEY song), is the perfect mixture of Lio and Neue Deutsche Welle, German new wave. Next comes ?I THINK YOU THINK? with darkest new wave disco and Laetitia amazingly manages to go even lower by one octave. ?EXPLAIN OUR SYNC? has the effect of an electro skit that resets the receptors in your ears. The tribal funkiness of ?LOIN DE MOI? is followed by the simple, but perfect ?AMOUREUSE?. Then ?WHAT YOU WANT? fuses Basic Channel, Kraftwerk, Joy Division and Grace Jones. Sixties-inspired ?Le Pop? can be heard on ?AFFAIRE CLASSɅ?, and with the well-known hypno beat of ?ANYWAY I KNOW YOU? the albums ends. ?FALL RIGHT NOW? is really one of a kind. The ten tracks oscillate between different worlds that may seem irreconcilable for narrow-minded listeners but seem to fit together as a matter of course for the members of Rework. Let's go to the arts cinema down the road and watch ?Bonjour Tristesse? with subtitles. Then we can put on black eyeliner and go to the WMF. Sounds good? Then play this record before some copywriter or other turns these influences into a kind of lifestyle, or they take this music to serve in a commercial for a French brand of cigarettes... Text by: Sascha Lazimbat Translation by: Carol Stichel