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No, were not talking old school electronica ala Kraftwerk, Neu! or Amon Duul, but the heavy nature sounds and glitch trips of Germany's TM Schneider. Think small vehicles, large trees, a boy, a dog and his Akai MPC3000. Right?

Welcome to the first drop of the bomb (kamikaze run?) in Yahoo! Music’s Better Living Through MP3 blog. Why should you read this blog and suck up its free MP3s, and not those other blatantly moronic blogs currently taking up precious space on your browser? It’s Yahoo! A NAME YOU CAN TRUST. Better Living Through MP3 will bring you the latest in a wide, often non genre specific, array of free MP3s every week, three times a week, until the second coming, or Sly’s next record – you make the call. And we’re not talking chicken feed, either. Stoned alt folkies delivering wizened retro-isms from Mt. Beelzebub? We got ‘em. Torch song babes one step away from 15 seconds of TMZ stardom? No problem. Dazed knob twiddlers working MPCs til they drop? Please come back for more.

Better Living Through MP3 will post new MP3s from the wanton worlds of indie rock (next up: Cornelius’ Sensuous), electronica  dead tech, dance cruelty, 70s retro rock, 60s jazz frocks, Just Blazin No Depression Kung Fu testicular mayhem and everything in between. We aim to please. But back to this week’s MP3 offering from Germanic robo boy wonder, TM Schneider.

The grand golden era of late 90s electronica that included Plug, Squarepusher, and Coldcut may have passed, but nature lover TM Schneider still holds that freak flag high. The inner sleeve to his latest, Skoda Mluvit, details all the barmy bits and pieces he used to record the CD, and by association, today’s MP3, “Peanut.” Though the sources have been stretched’n’sliced, they include “balaphon (sic), people, chair, bewag electricity, church bells, lighter, window, fingers” and dozens of more common musical soft and hardware. Schneider (aka Dirk Dresselhaus) creates a huge organic symphony from this mess, Skoda Mluvit skittering and sliding from “Peanut”’s bouncy tablas-and-Beck breakfast surprise to “More Time” (Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” rebuilt on demolished airport parts), “Pac Man/Shopping Cart” (hopscotch-butterscotch beats and sleepy strings, homeless man blues), and “Caplets” (druggy ode references The Beatles “8 Days A Week ” -- sounds almost as good).

Nothing like his 2004 breakthrough Zoomer, Skoda Mluvit proves that  Schneider has learned the lesson ignored by most electronica/Krautrockers (hello To Rococo Rot!), and happily moved on. Skoda Mluvit is schizoid for sure, jumping from pastoral pop tunes (“Cataract”) to spooky electronic gadgetry (“A Ride”) quicker than you can say “Would you buy a lid from this man?” but Schneider pursues his World Party meets Neu! fixation with contagious glee. “The World’s A Cup” closes the record, recalling Four Tet’s crazy mash-ups, with gangland vocals by Wayne Coyne. Hasta la vista ala habenero.. 

Schneider TM - Peanut  (MP3, 4:54)