The Umlauts is a band that’s pretty far out of my usual taste, but I can’t get enough. If you listen to that song and think “that band sounds a bit like a parody of a band”, you’re kind of on to something. From a profile in The Quietus:
One evening as they joked around about their fictional label, “we thought that it would be funny to start a kind of techno-ish band called The Umlauts,” [band member Oliver] Offord recalls. “It was obvious that we’d employ Annabelle with her knowledge of the German language to sing on it.” Half for fun, they came up with a pumping demo instrumental and the line ‘Boiler Suits And Combat Boots’. Then they approached Faldini for another song called ‘Energy Plan’”
2023’s LP Slags hit my radar a few weeks ago, and it’s been on pretty regularly. I’m generally not one for non-English lyrics, but this record has gotten under my skin in a way that no other German/French/Italian music has to date.
Per the Bandcamp description, Slags is made up of several tracks from the band’s first two EPs, 2021’s Ü and 2022’s Another Fact, as well as three new tracks (“Dance & Go”, “Mad Blue Love” and Prédateur”). It’s not obvious, though: there’s a sense throughout the record that anything can happen, that complete chaos or breathtaking beauty is seconds away. That’s enough to give the record a coherent and unified feel.
The Umlauts is made up of nine members, including two vocalists: Annabelle Mödlinger and Maria Vittoria Faldini speak four languages between them. The music is the artsiest punk rock I’ve ever heard. Hit play on this State51 video, everything about it is absorbing and intense:
They’ve got a three-night residency happening in January 2025 at The Windmill Brixton, and are using those gigs to showcase some new material. Can’t wait to see where they go next.
