Candie Hank used to give the impression that he was being outpaced by his own ingenuity. That he didn’t even try to go through his ideas and put them in their place. That he had instead handed his tracks over to the regiment, leaving them to maraud at will through the clubs, radios and living rooms. Candie’s play instinct and an agitated measure of insanity were elements that shaped the style of his electronic mischief from the beginning. 

Candie Hank is a project of Patric Catani, a Kreuzberg-based man of 1000 faces. With his new album Demons Hank shows that he now knows how to channel his flow of ideas in the right direction. Right from the opening track The Fox he presents a new type of desert rock or pimped surf music, of course with proper beats and bass. He has filtered out and distilled the mania, the subliminal madness appropriated by the surf and psychobilly genre. And with cold calculation, Candie has cast this insanity into tracks, administered throughout the entire album in just the right amount. There is now a method to his madness.

On Demons Candie Hank combines things that actually can’t be combined. Arabesque melodic lines, ethereal female choruses, high-speed drumming and Jamaican spoken word, for example. He switches elegantly and effortlessly from a typical Candie-like, slightly wooden Monty Python soundtrack with a tea dance sample to an acid bass line. He does this with a smile, a finger exercise. The wonderfully lunatic Babyshka Demona features – you’ve already guessed it – balalaika samples. Dervishes from the Carpathians playing stringed instruments of unknown origin to convulsive beats in Transylvanian Voodoo. And the sly electronic polka madness, Candie Hank’s trademark, can be admired on Elevator Life in its purest form. Giving the direction and at the same time standing in as the title track of the album, Peace (with my Demons) is a true club anthem, every bit as breathless as it is laid back. It is clear here that Candie Hank is the master of the irresistible four-note melody. Hovering over it all is the spirit of Groucho Marx, who also lent his name to the 2006 album Groucho Running. 

Over the years, Candie Hank has undergone a consistent development: from producer of unbridled sound clashes to maestro of oblivious elegance. From hyperactive density to hypnotic transparency. Practically every one of his tracks once had a feisty life of its own. The master took them off the leash as scurrying, pint-sized monsters only to find them later running wild all over the place. Compared to his early work, Demons seems ambitious and salient. Hank has allowed his cunning to flow into short, concise tracks. And the breaks and chaotic combinations are what take each track in a new and unexpected direction at precisely the right moment. Candie Hank is the master of his own unpredictability, which he controls and puts to his own use. And every second you can hear what a diabolical kick he gets out of it.

How Candie gets you to hear his Candieness, among the broad range of styles from the first to the last moment, remains his secret. For the most part, this secret will not be revealed throughout the entire duration of his new album. Because whatever he does, Candie will always be uniquely Hank. It doesn’t matter what kind of mood he conjures up, or what style he draws on. He sounds unmistakably like himself.