to rococo rotʼs records on City Slang, “veiculo“ (1997), “the amateur view“ (1999) and “music is a hungry ghost“ (2001) will be released since a long time again. Each album will be rereleased as a remastered album with bonus tracks. linernotes. to rococo rot. veiculo. 1997\u002F2012. Sabine Gietzelt. München. August 2012What does ‘Gegend’ (area) look like? How can you musically approximate this already vague term for apart of a landscape or a city? Generations of musicians have taken up the question of how places canbe described musically, of what they feel like acoustically. With ‚veiculo‘, to rococo rot take a stroll in alandscape and architectural space that hasn’t yet been built up, letting each one merge with the other.Thankfully, this attempt didn’t result in any kind of ambient carpet of sound. And all-too technoid concretesamples, which have their own connotations, were also excluded. The sound on ‚veiculo‘, is dry,the structures are clear, the pieces reduced, the samples freed from any information, space opens up.Fifteen years ago, when ‚veiculo‘ was initially released, a process of rethinking was going on. The separationbetween band and DJ, between song and track, between analogue and digital had given way tocooperation between them. In ‚veiculo‘, instruments were experimented with, and the different values ofrecording, mixing, and mastering gave way to an idea that ,Everything is important!‘. So from the verybeginning, the music was about leaving things out. Empty spaces were used as bridges instead ofbogging down the open intervals with sound. Many people today, after an overdose of minimal techno,have unlearned how to cherish the reduced in music. ‚veiculo‘, however, and despite all the reduction, is arecord that propels forward with subtly dynamic pieces, which is also due to the empty spaces. The pausesare not treated as gaps in the construction that destroy the overall view, but as sites with their ownright to exist. Open spaces where anything is possible: for functional use, for wild mental gymnastics,or even for the sweetness of doing nothing at all in an undefined, if also limited space. Music to listen tocasually, to sink into, and also to dream into romantically. to rococo rot’s pieces on ‚veiculo‘ assume theclassic pop format, coming to an end (usually) after only three or four minutes, although one can easilyimagine them going on for another ten minutes. They are songs rather than tracks, even if they managewithout any words, and they don’t shy away from the fascination of electronically generated sounds.Parts of ‚veiculo‘ are reminiscent of dub, a genre of music in which reduction has long been at home. torococo rot let their samples and loops branch out into ever more complex sounds, which nonethelesscome to an end instead of perishing, frayed and nebulous, into nothingness. And even Krautrock, a genrethat was already somewhat hackneyed at the time, turns up at just the right spot in to rococo rot. Fifteenyears ago, there weren’t very many other bands as far along as to rococo rot. SG