Tosca - Suzuki

Richard Dorfmeister spent the late nineties as one half of Kruder & Dorfmeister, the Viennese pair whose remixes made downtempo a global export. Tosca, his duo with childhood friend Rupert Huber, was the quieter project, and Suzuki in 2000 was the record where it found its own identity rather than living in the shadow of the day job.

The formula is deceptively simple: dub bass, brushed drums, Huber's piano drifting in from another room, and just enough smoke to keep it from ever feeling clinical. The title track and "Annanas" set the pace, all slow-motion swing and space between the notes. "Busenfreund" and "Honey" bring in the murmured vocal samples that became a Tosca signature, while "Doris Dub" closes things out exactly where the record started, only further from shore.

Downtempo aged badly as a genre, mostly because too much of it was made as furniture. Suzuki survived because Dorfmeister and Huber were actually writing, not just setting a mood. The arrangements reward attention even when you are not paying any.

Reissued by !K7 Records across two LPs. A cornerstone of the Vienna sound and one of the few records of its era still worth putting on at full volume.