I’m actually pretty into the “night driving through Los Angeles” subgenre of music goin’ around now, e.g. music that kinda/sorta feels like the Chromatics but five years later. It’s a bit better than “night driving through Michigan,” e.g. Salem, and the film Drive really did rule. Which is what I immediately think of watching/listening to the new song/video from Berlin’s Ulrich Schnauss and director Nat Urazmetova. I’m not sure if this is gonna stick yet (like the soundtrack[s] of said film did ), but its ambientish dark disco of sad licks and gauzy beats feels promising enough. I almost wish I lived in some damn city again just to have nights like this.Anyhow, the video and single are out ahead of a February full-length release, A Long Way To Fall, on Domino Records. It’s his first record in six years. I reckon we’ll have more to say around then. In the meantime, Schnauss explains:Throughout the last decade, I recorded three albums that were trying to translate the early 90’s shoegaze aesthetic into an electronic context. After finishing the last album, Goodbye, I felt a need for a change of direction. At the same time, my music taste was changing drastically. While I had spent a couple of years mainly listening to songwriting based music (a lot of ‘indie’/band-type stuff), I was now rediscovering my love for electronic music based on more open structures. This provided the main inspiration of trying to record an album that would celebrate the synthesizer as the very capable musical instrument that it is, but without the need to disguise it behind a wall of echo and reverb. What satisfies me the most about this album is that I think I’ve managed to create a record that has a coherent, cohesive narrative.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.