2 LP If geography has an impact on music, then Vienna has coloured Toscas music at every turn. Over the course of a career spanning two decades, the Austrian capital has inspired Richard Dorfmeister (of Kruder & Dorfmeister fame) and Rupert Huber to make electronic mood pieces coloured with Mitteleuropean melancholy. Its a bittersweet juxtaposition that is much in evidence on the pairs new album, Odeon. It opens with the hazy strings of Zur Guten, which ebbs into the oozing keys and pizzicato steel string guitars of What If, which features a smokey vocal from Sarah Carlier. Lead single Jayjay is a haunted combination of sombre piano chords, rolling drums and weird, otherworldly vocals from JJ Jones. Its the pivotal track on a record that sees Tosca tapping into gothic atmospheres. Its darker than their previous five albums, more downbeat, at times ambient. Its unlike anything else out there at the moment. Is there a reason for this sombre tone? Nothing specific. Obviously our music is influenced by our experiences of life it couldnt be any other way so in some senses its a kind of diary, but there werent any single incidents that caused the record to be that little bit darker, says Dorfmeister. If anything, the exact opposite is true: life has been good. Over the last year I think weve both learnt to be more generous and to understand our own limitations and other peoples says Huber. A case of musical yin and personal yang, then. The albums name, meanwhile, comes from the venue in Vienna where Tosca debuted the new material in October. The performance went so well they decided it would make a fortuitous name the music/place interface in action once again. More than anything, Odeon is the sound of a band at the top of their game. A good time for them to release a career retrospective then. Dorfmeister reflects on the bands history. It sounds like a cliche, but weve never really thought about other peoples music when were writing our own, he says. We try and create our own sound. We really have always been like that. And I think weve developed a trademark sound because of that. They certainly have. Its been called the Vienna sound. And, in updated form, it still sounds like nothing else. TRACKLISTING 1. Zur Guten Ambience 2. What If 3. Heatwave 4. Jayjay 5. Soda 6. Meixner 7. Stuttgart 8. In My Brain Prinz Eugen 9. Cavallo 10. Bonjour