Latest CD releases reviewed

TIEFSCHWARZ
Eat Books Fire **

Gone for now are the languid, sleek house grooves with which Berlin brothers Ali and Basti Tiefschwarz first made their name and a fine debut album, Ral 9005. Instead, what you'll find studded throughout their second album are the kind of voguish raging bleeps, squelchy glitches and synthetic funk that are beginning to sound a mite tired and dated at this juncture no matter whose hand is on the wheel. There are moments when Tiefschwarz soar and the formula produces gold dust, but these are few and far between. Warning Sign, with The Rapture's Matty Safer on energised yelps, is one such nugget, as is Damage, with Everything But The Girl's Tracey Thorn supplying the world-weary, troubled tones. Yet there's little else here deserving of any kind of sustained applause, with an attempted reworking of Marvin Gaye's Troubleman sounding as if it's goons rather than ghosts in the machines. www.tiefschwarz.net Jim Carroll