Call this an EP or mini LP or simply a collection of songs, the one thing we can all agree on is that Caput Medusae is wholly German. Taking a Krautrock base and then layering all sorts of darkwave elements into pithy, short songs? Oh, yeah, and they sing both ways, too (in English and German).

Caput Medusae Schwartzschild (self-released)

So that's the easy part. Why does this work? Darkwave in general relies on excess: An excess of synths, riffage or doomy vocals. Preferably all three. Caput Medusae runs in the total opposite direction, almost homeopathically reducing the influences bit by bit. This is like a hollow shell of darkwave, and man, does it hit hard.

Maybe it's the whole oppositional nature of the project. And there's a low-key techno thing once the band really gets going, and that's always paired well with Krautrock. In the end, this is something like Bauhaus playing Tangerine Dream edits, and who's gonna argue with that?

Shut up already. If that's not your thing, cool. But Caput Medusae has taken a number of old school sounds, stripped them to the studs and found something new. Sometimes the night is scarier when you can hear everything while the wind blows.

Jon Worley