EB Listening: Xaver von Treyer’s ‘The Torino Scale’ album streaming in full

If you pay close attention, you’ll be hearing the little Moroder’s singing. Well, metaphorically, since Xaver von Treyer can’t be pigeonholed with just Italo disco – though you can hear rhythmic and melodic references such as spherical, bubbling synthesizers sounds throughout The Torino Scale, von Treyer aka Xaver Naudascher’s debut album.

Further earthly pleasures come in the shape of mesmerizing guitar licks, 10-minute-long studies in Krautrock and the collaboration with Japanese singer Yuko Matsuyama on ‘Lunar Rover (Utao Okami)’, a piece which was originally released on Kompakt‘s ‘Japan Relief’ compilation in early 2011.

The base of the Supersoul Recordings founder’s LP is electronica and cosmic music though, both musically as conceptual. Most obviously, the track titles refer to deep space: ‘We Are Alien’, Spit From the Sun’, ‘Solar Fire’, to name a few. And then there’s ‘The Torino Scale’ itself of course, a “method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects such as asteroids and comets” (Wikipedia), which places the album in a context of impact on earth.

You don’t need to travel the universe though to get the idea: ‘The Torino Scale’ is out on October 21st on Supersoul Recordings, you can stream the whole record in advance below.

Published October 17, 2011.