Even with the advent of the internet and the supposedly shrinking world, there’s no denying that music is a geographical thing, a tangible physical relationship that becomes intensely nuanced when it comes to techno. It’s appropriate that perennially underrated producer Donnacha Costello comes from Ireland, then, because there’s no largely identifiable sound associated with that particular place. Indeed, the phrase “Irish techno producer” sounds a bit unfamiliar. I say ‘appropriate’ because Costello has never embodied one particular genre or style; the man typically called a ‘techno’ producer is probably best-known for a mostly ambient album, 2001’s gorgeous Together Is The New Alone. When he does do techno, his direction varies wildly, whether it be the mercurial fluidity of his renowned “Colorseries” twelve inch singles (culminating with the release of a Colorseries compilation in 2008), or his recent more minimal, stoic dance tracks for Look Long.
If it wasn’t already painfully obvious, Donnacha Costello is adept at adaptation (sorry), fine-tuning his sound for whatever medium and era he’s releasing in. With Before We Say Goodbye, only his third proper (non-compilation) LP in fourteen years and this time on German label Poker Flat, he’s tempered his dancefloor tendencies once again for an excellent, subtle record that ebbs and flows, rises and falls with a perfectly natural rhythm. It’s almost like a techno LP sequenced as a rock album, with the right upbeat tracks and ballads at just the right times. Really, it feels almost too ornate to be considered a true ‘techno’ album for most of its duration, rather a very pretty, pseudo-ambient record that gently pulses with techno rhythms. Fans of ‘ambient techno,’ especially early Aphex Twin and Black Dog, will find much to love here, though this music feels more assuredly human and warm-blooded than those sometimes alien producers.
Going back to geography, the album fittingly begins with “Leaving Berlin,” which honestly sounds like the soundtrack to an airport (complete with a P.A. announcement) and the track mixes the more distinctly European elements of dark, low-octave pianos and deep kick drums with lush strings and synths reminiscent of early American techno. “A Warm Embrace” is just that, throbbing with a quiet intensity and taking the strings from the opener and using them to gently envelope the listener, until the throbbing motion is a soothing lull. The next section sees the plane landing in a certain city (for once I won’t drop the D-word), the worn riffs of “It’s What We Do” like something that could have been on Metroplex back in the day, and the pseudo-acid house of “No-One Is Watching” sounding almost classic, except with the squelches carefully smoothed out into something more palatable, more universal. The album hits its stride with the fantastic “Roll It Out,” the kind of track many producers can only dream of, a rousing, chunky beat buoying a rapturous 8bit jingle that sounds like an ice cream truck driving through a rave, interrupted by contemplative sections of swooping strings and billowing synths.
The second half of the album does an admirable job of winding down after “With Me Still” taken right out of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2, beatless, woozy synths painting an unreadable tone poem, the final sleep before heading back home; and indeed, the journey back starts with “Stretching Time,” stuttering, dirty rhythms poked at by indistinct, subterranean rattling, the kind so characteristic of contemporary German techno. “The Tug” brings things to a complete halt with its mournful melody, again beatless but buoyed by the pure forward momentum of the synth, resignedly pushing itself towards the finish line — and what a finish it is. Closing with the stunning “Last Train Home” which isn’t so much a techno track as some sort of joyous post-rock crescendo stuck in that one moment of absolute release, repeating it over and over again, it carefully builds to its own climax that never quite comes. It’s a track that tingles with the relief of being home, the disappointment of the return to normalcy coupled with the satisfaction of familiarity. It’s a song that sounds instantly recognizable, like it could be years old, and the same could be said for most of Donnacha Costello’s music on this LP.
With Before We Say Goodbye he has created a near-perfect techno album, a mini-travelogue that finds the correct path to accessibility without watering anything down. It’s elegant, welcoming, and friendly, and probably the closest anyone has gotten to what the term “ambient techno” really should mean, not a small feat by any measure.
