Album »Endless Rüttenscheid« – International Music: Everything you want

As we all know, when everyone agrees, caution is advised – actually. Because there are well-founded exceptions: This is the case with International Music, who became a darling of critics and audiences overnight with their debut album “The Best Years” in 2018, and rightly so. Comparisons were made back then with FSK, Trio, Velvet Underground or even Freddy Quinn. You could see what you wanted to see in the music: melancholy and exuberance, reduction and complexity, Dada and profoundness – a projection surface of unfulfilled longings. And on their 2021 follow-up “Ententraum”, the band also moved between post punk, psych pop and folk elements in a stylish and idiosyncratic manner.

Now, three years later, album number three follows with “Endless Rüttenscheid”. And once again, stoic, herbaceous drum rhythms, distorted shoegaze guitars and hyper-melodic harmony vocals dominate, as only Peter Rubel and his congenial partner Pedro Goncalves Crescenti can sing with this inimitable quality. In a side project, the two also operate as the Düsseldorf Düsterboys (from the city of Essen), and International Music also includes drummer Joel Roters. The opener “Kraut” already lives up to its name, while the two front men languish in the Byrds-like chorus: “If you want, I’ll paint you a picture.” You want, and again this “picture” combines everything you have would like to see.

When you listen to their music, you are sometimes inclined to think that this music can’t actually be that difficult. All you need, it seems, is the right rhythm paired with the right melody. But the impression is deceptive: when things are going well, bands usually have either one or the other. A good rhythm can make you dance the night away, the right melody can ensure that you leave bed whistling the next morning after three hours of sleep. International music, that’s the highlight, has both: melody and rhythm, groove and catchiness.

Just like in the pre-single “Guter Ort”, which is not just a good piece of music, but an outstanding one. The beat sounds like a new wave in combination with the redundant melody, which for once is not played by the guitar but by a synthesizer. The chorus then says: “This is a good place to live.” Wherever that may be, you land softly with the following psych-folk piece “Karma Karma”. Once again the band underlines their ability to write texts not as stories, but as images. There are no courses of action, no common thread, no circle that would close at the end. Only fleeting impressions and colors: “And again and again the old falls apart/And again and again the new blossoms somewhere.”

Unlike its two overly long predecessors, “Endless Rüttenscheid” is comparatively short at 40 minutes. This isn’t a disadvantage, on the contrary: the band has thrown any unnecessary ballast overboard. What remains are twelve songs and the band’s best, most compact album to date, which is guaranteed not to fall apart so quickly but will last for years.

International Music: »Endless Rüttenscheid« (Timeless Melancholic Music/H’Art)

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