Happy Birthday

Modeselektor | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 11, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bpitch Control
• ASIN: B000SNUMES
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,516 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Happy Birthday!

2. Godspeed

3. 2000007

4. Let Your Love Grow

5. Em Ocean

6. The Suckerpin

7. Edgar

8. Hyper Hyper

9. The B.M.I.

10. The Dark Side of the Frog

11. The Dark Side of the Sun

12. The Deboutonner

Editorial Reviews

After their homage to their moms (Hello Mom!: BPC 115CD/LP) and the digestion of piled-up experiences of their musical freshmen years, the arts and crafts duo Modeselektor release their second album, Happy Birthday!. This record describes the main focus of Berliners Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary: hang out together all the time. Both dudes will become fathers very soon, almost simultaneously -- happy birthday! But back to their labor-pains: After 111 slashings and burnings across dancefloors from Sydney to Iceland, and driven by the ungovernable spirit of gold-diggers, Gernot and Szary holed up in their mobile Airstream caravan recording studio in order to give birth to Happy Birthday!. The conditions of production were slightly adverse, but thanks to digital transfer technology and a mild winter in Berlin, it all came together nicely in the end. The repertoire of Happy Birthday! runs from hard rap with a French kick to dubstep in the broadest sense. New urban word scraps attempt to describe Modeselektor's style: Eurocrunk, continental grime, tech-rap... the list is long. Mr. Bronsert and Mr. Szary don't like to put a genre sticker on their music anyway, so they don't really care. They just do great music, no matter what style. And another good thing -- their tendency to not take themselves seriously is unbowed, so this album is great fun for everybody -- moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, etc. Also features astounding contributions from Thom Yorke, Puppetmastaz, Apparat, Paul St. Hilaire, Otto Von Schirach, Siriusmo and the French rap gang, TTC, as well as a CD-only bonus track from Maxïmo Park.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Headphone Commute Review, August 17, 2008

By 

Headphone Commute - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Birthday (Audio CD)

Mixing up everything from IDM to dub, electro and hip-hop, Modeselektor puts out a truly fun album that keeps me bopping up and down. There is evident humor in some of the tracks and that's exactly that attitude that forces me to spin Happy Birthday! on for a fun ride. Not to mention an excellent array of featured artists. We've got French hip-hop from Paris, TTC; some Dominican style fun vocals from Paul St. Hilaire; throw-your-hands-up party rap from Puppetmastaz; and an absolutely excellent track featuring Thom Yorke, titled The White Flash. [Side note: the 2008 12" Happy Birthday! Remixed #1, features The White Flash remixed by Trentemøller - it's worth picking up just for the B side]. Modeselektor returned the favor and remixed Thom Yorke's Skip Divided from The Eraser (XL, 2008). Modeselektor is a Berlin based duo of Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary. When Bronsert and Szary initially met in 1992, they were producing music under alias Fundamental Knowledge. In 1995 they renamed themselves to Modeselektor, after a function on Roland RE-201's effects module. Another interesting side project is called Moderat - a collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat which only saw a single 12" on BPitch Control back in 2003 and now returned with a track on Happy Birthday! titled Let Your Love Grow. This is Modeselektor's sophomore release, named in anticipation of the unplanned accidentally synchronized births of the duo's children. Modeselektor is not afraid to whip any stylistic trend back into its cage. From four-to-the-floor acid infused electro beats, to heavy grime, this is already a favorite party album. In the middle of the album, after a heavy beat from The Black Block, my ear pricks up to a familiar melody. The track's name is The First Rebirth, and I immediately recognize the classic trance anthem from 1993 under the same name, written by Jones & Stephenson for Bonzai Records (and I still have my copy - actually just dug up Commander Tom's '94 Remix on Prolekult). The album finishes up with an excellent up-beat glitchy hard breaks featuring Maxïmo Park. Pick up this album and treat yourself to one of my 2007 favorites! Recommended if you enjoy Boxcutter, Pole, Plaid, Funkstörung and Mouse on Mars. Be sure to grab Modeselektor's 2005 debut, Hello Mom! p.s. Excellent popping music!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Moments of brilliance, weighed down by expectation, January 20, 2008

By 

Augustine Backer (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Happy Birthday (Audio CD)

There are a few tracks that are brilliant, breaking new ground, fusing together various genres, but unfortunately these moments are brief, and then we delve back into a more predictable pattern. I wish they had stayed in the moments of brilliance a little longer.

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it, April 8, 2011

By 

Danny - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Happy Birthday! (MP3 Download)

Love Modeskeltor I would say about 3/4 of the songs on this CD are awesome if your into techno which is rare for a techno cd.