Review Summary: Riding the blogosphere.
Roosevelt’s story demonstrates the impact influential fans can have on your career. With a demo recording of his first song “Sea” making the rounds on the blogosphere, Cologne-based producer Marius Lauber was soon approached by Joe Goddard's label Greco-Roman and, subsequently, signed - in spite of no other material being finished at that time. It's not like Lauber had been a complete stranger to the music business at that point; as a member of German band
Beat!Beat!Beat!, which had almost single-handedly revived interest for German indie pop and garnered a NME feature with its members still being in their teens, he had plenty of opportunities to befriend important people and collect fans all over Europe.
Now, with his band on indefinite hiatus, Lauber’s experience and musicianship started to feed into a solo project, Roosevelt. Aiming at combining his passions for both electronic music and pop, he retains a lot of the ingredients that had made Beat!Beat!Beat! so successful, but fuses them with a new-found sensibility for beats and synthesized sounds. The result is a four-track EP, “Elliot”, that is not too dissimilar from label mates like
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs or
Disclosure, but still preserves its very own and distinct sound.
Roosevelt’s songs could in fact easily be dismissed as chillwave or even elevator music. Behind the hazy, reverb-laden vocals and the smooth production, there is little to grab attention at first glance. A lot of what makes this collection of songs so compelling unfolds only with repeated listening: the
Caribou-invoking opener “Elliot” features intricate synth melodies at the back of the mix, accompanying the song's hook “Elliot, Elliot, look out / We got time on our way from now”. “Montreal” puts emphasis on a gorgeous bass line that carries the whole song, while “Around You” is Roosevelt’s very own take on TEED's practice of meandering arpeggios.
However, with all the electronic elements in action, Lauber still manages to evoke a natural and warm atmosphere. Debut single “Sea” perfectly captures that feel, also being the song that relies most on classic instruments. Amidst the beeps and blips of synthesizers and samples, you can hear shakers, tambourines, a real drum kit, sometimes even funky guitars. All of this makes the track sound as it is played by an actual band, rather than being the work of a dance producer. Lauber, an accomplished drummer, has every right to be proud of having recorded all percussion instruments himself.
It is apparent that a lot of thought has been put into these four songs. At only 18 minutes, the EP remains concise while still featuring enough substance to keep things interesting. Roosevelt has proven himself a decidedly non-prolific artist; eight tracks have surfaced on the internet so far, only five of which have been officially released up to this point. All of them share a surprisingly uniform sound. It will be very interesting to see whether Lauber will be able to transfer his formula to a full length without repeating himself. For now, he remains a talented and promising artist to keep an eye on.
