Au Suisse - Au Suisse (LP)

Some collaborations feel inevitable in hindsight. Morgan Geist’s precision-tooled dance instincts and Kelley Polar’s cool, aching vocals already brushed up against each other in the 2000s, when Geist produced Polar’s cult synth-pop gems. Their full-circle reunion as Au Suisse lands with a satisfying click. The self-titled album arrived in 2022 on City Slang, and it sounds like two veterans refining a language they helped shape, then whispering in it.

Geist, best known for Metro Area’s sleek early-2000s blueprint and the Storm Queen hit Look Right Through, drives these songs with a glassy sense of motion. You get the snap of drum machines that never crowd the room, basslines that move like headlights on wet asphalt, and synth pads with just enough bloom to make the vocal emotions stick. Polar, a classically trained violist who long ago reimagined himself as an electronic romantic, is the voice and temperature of the record. He sings with poise and a faint shiver, always a little withheld, which only makes the hooks tug harder.

The early singles set the tone. Thing About You is the earworm, a lithe pulse that sneaks into melancholy without slowing down. The beat is almost posture-perfect, but tiny gestures keep unfolding, like a muted keyboard phrase that answers the chorus on its own time. Control tightens the screws. It rides a crisp, pointillist sequence and lets Polar push against the grid, almost conversational, as if he’s testing the edges of a private theory about desire and distance. Both tracks got notice from outlets that pay attention when Geist moves, and it’s easy to hear why. They’re club-ready in structure, but they bloom on headphones.

What keeps Au Suisse compelling is its restraint. The duo favor clean lines, but there’s heat in the negative space. You catch it in the way a hi-hat flares and then vanishes, or how a single synth voice carries a whole late-night mood. Even when the tempo lifts, the songs feel interior, like you’re dancing with a thought you can’t shake. That mood will ring a bell for anyone who loved Metro Area’s elegant austerity or Polar’s Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens. Here, though, the blend is more seamless. It isn’t producer plus singer so much as two sensibilities dissolving into one another.

Sequencing helps. The album plays like a steady glide from city glow into the dim hours when conversations get honest. Choruses don’t overstay; bridges open windows, then shut before the draft. The writing is economical and catchy, but it also trades in little feints. You think the kick will punch in four bars earlier than it does. A chord slips from major to minor at the last second. Those turns feel like people do, which might be why these songs sit so well alongside the electronic canon that values tone and touch over spectacle.

It also rewards a proper spin on wax. If you’ve been hunting for Au Suisse vinyl, the City Slang pressing of this self-titled set is the way to hear the low-end architecture really breathe. The stereo image is clean and deep, so the bass steps forward without fogging the picture. I tried it in the shop on a modest rig and then at home on a slightly fussier setup and kept noticing the same thing: the mix invites you in rather than impressing you at a distance. If you want to buy Au Suisse records online, you’ll find copies floating around, and it sits nicely next to other Au Suisse albums on vinyl once this project grows a catalog. Until then, it’s a tidy single-LP statement that feels built to last.

Fans who came in through Geist’s Metro Area work will clock the lineage right away. Listeners who found Polar through his Juilliard-to-disco arc will hear the carryover too. But the pleasure here isn’t nostalgic. It’s how modern the whole thing feels in its restraint, like a refusal of bloat. The songs hold a line between romance and reserve, and they do it with an almost architectural sense of proportion.

If you’re crate-digging at a Melbourne record store or flipping through vinyl records Australia listings at 1 a.m., this is one to pull. The hooks stick, the production gleams, and the cool-on-the-outside, glowing-on-the-inside vibe turns into something quietly addictive. Au Suisse feels small on purpose, elegant and a little secretive, which is exactly what keeps you coming back.