At first ‘&’ seems like an odd album title, until you realise this is effectively a compilation, a set of tracks where Michael Mayer teams up with a different musical buddy each time. Interestingly he chooses not to release the results on Kompakt, but in doing so gives himself more musical freedom. The album is structured well too, so from the thoughtful opener ‘We Like To Party’, with Roman Flügel, and the deep ‘Blackbird Has Spoken’, with Agoria, we get the brighter ‘Disco Dancers’, with Burger and Voigt & Voigt, we move to the striking electro colours of ‘Voyage Interieur’, with Miss Kittin, and . Joe Goddard also makes a subtle but lasting impression with his vocal on ‘For You’, and the album drifts away on the warmth of the Andrew Thomas deep techno collaboration, ‘Cicadelia’. As Alan Partridge would say, lovely stuff.
Ben Hogwood
4 out of 5
MICHAEL MAYER – & – !K7
