Polytechnic Youth’s de facto house-band finally deliver an album-sized release, stuffed to the diodes with synth-pop-noir hits for a parallel-universe
As mentioned in our still-fresh interview-profile with Polytechnic Youth founder-curator Dom Martin, The Detox Twins very much embody the ‘PY sound’ and have been a constant sonic thread through the label’s illustrious tale to date. Since 2014 this has primarily consisted of an essential string of dark yet playful synth-pop lathe-cut 7” singles from the duo of England’s Mark Vorderhaus (synths/drum machines/occasional vocals) and Germany’s Devi von Teufel (lead vocals/words). Now, at last, comes the twosome’s first full-length LP release, which feels like a precision-tooled greatest hits set with a twist.
Bringing together many previously-released A/B-sides and one key compilation track into one place might, in other scenarios, have suggested an act of contractual-obligation laziness. However, given that many of us have been willing on the arrival of a long-form round-up for a while, finding the cream of The Detox Twins canon pooled into one place is actually a public service. With some significant but not distracting remixing and embellishments added across the ten choice cuts, Dead Horse Ghost also has a freshness to take it beyond being a straightforward anthology arrangement.
Recorded largely in Berlin and partly in Hebden Bridge, funnelling together retro-futuristic rhythmically-heavy sounds and the duo’s odd-couple chemistry, these ten tracks are crammed but not over-cluttered with both hooks and invention. With Vorderhaus being a thoughtful connoisseur of late-70s-to-early-80s electro-pop of all stripes and von Teufel channelling both Nico and Nena Kerner, an addictive alchemy is baked into every last squelchy bleep and deadpan vocal line.
By his own admission, Vorderhaus initially sought to focus The Detox Twins on exploring the range of a propulsive 158bpm tempo learned from Depeche Mode’s seminal “New Life”. This does indeed define many of the speediest and most dizzying moments gathered here, which hyper-burble along as could-have-been-cult-to-mainstream-hits-forty-or-so-years-ago. Hence, the stomping and pulsing “Warschauerstrasse”, “Autofahrer”, “Einhorn Suicide”, “Passport to Leipzig”, “In the Hospital Garden” and “I’m Not Available” musically feel like great lost collaborations between Vince Clarke, Ralf Hütter and Martin Rev. Elsewhere though, where the pacing drops down in varying degrees, other more subtle dimensions are demarked to provide more space for deeper grooves and broader moods, which further foreground von Teufel’s commanding presence. Consequently, “Paradox” unfurls like a warped-manifesto nugget somewhere between Colin Potter and The Normal; “Dreaming of Florida” uncoils as an oddly beautiful and balmy lysergic ballad; “In the Deep Water” skulks like vintage Gary Numan on a tighter budget; and “Gravity” prowls around like a scuzzed-up Soft Cell.
What becomes abundantly clear throughout Dead Horse Ghost, is that The Detox Twins are not simple pastiche-purveyors. There is an intense craftsmanship beneath the dishevelled exteriors and a fecund fusion of creative personalities that makes for compulsive listening. Hopefully, this is only just the end of the beginning of a very compelling creative partnership.
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