Exercise One: DJs know them as crafters of cracking tracks on wax. Clubbers around the world know them as a live act that hurtles like a runaway train. Now, prepare to meet another side of the Berlin-based duo. In Cars We Rust is their debut album, and it presents the most complete picture of Exercise One’s world to date. The dancefloor stormers are still there, and the record’s flow is guided by the same spirit of improvisation that drives their live sets. But the clubbier material is rounded out by sounds we’ve never heard from Exercise One before: gorgeous, enveloping ambient tracks; soundtrack-ready synthesizer ballads; even a kind of retro-futurist electro-pop. Best of all, it all hangs together with ease. Marco Freivogel and Ingo Gansera are the mad mechanics (albeit with a sensitive side) behind the humming, pulsing Exercise One machine, and In Cars We Rust is a testament to the distance they’ve traveled since the two began making music together five years ago. During that time they’ve released singles for Mobilee, Num, Exone and Exercise One’s own Lan Muzic imprint, but more importantly they’ve spent the time perfecting their technique. Whether performing onstage or practicing and recording, music-making is a fundamentally live endeavor for Exercise One. It happens in real time, the fortuitous result of painstaking preparation, communication and the willingness to go where the music leads them. Produced and finessed over many months, In Cars We Rust is the studio product of their hands-on approach, as passages of spontaneous creation are edited, collaged and remixed into a strikingly varied, startlingly cohesive whole. “Circeo” comes on like dawn in August, with a rustle of percussion and muted horns giving way to slowly unfurling chords and gentle electro-acoustic chatter-featuring Seth Josel on guitar, it’s a four-plus minute ambient palate-cleanser to prep you for the deep-listening experience to follow.[wa pressetext from ]