t wasn’t meant to be like this. When Kraftwerk first emerged onto the Autobahn, blinking fiercely at the dawn of a brave new world, the possibilities seemed endless. Iggy Pop and Bowie knew it. Arthur Baker and Eno knew it. Giorgio Moroder and pretty much all of Detroit knew it. So how, as we’re sat here actually in the future with the Orwellian/Kubrick datelines consummately breached, does it all seem so flat?

Both the attitudes (a rejection of the traditional American Blues template in flavour of a more indigenous European mindset) and the equipment (silicon over strings) promised so much and, for a time undoubtedly, delivered. The legacy positively tattoos our contemporary culture. So why in 2005 can the likes of DJ Sammy and Crazy Frog sell millions whilst Kraftwerk’s genuine electronic offspring flounder on the very fringes of the leftfield despite producing gorgeously textured music that just happens to have been born in a computer? How can the future’s predominant realisation of electronic music be so bland?! Is it that people just don’t care? Or can it be attributed to the usual appropriation of new sounds and attitudes into a diluted form acceptable for the mainstream? Maybe. And, to be fair, this is hardly a situation exclusive to the electronic genre. Yet, more worryingly, does it in fact indicate a deeper malaise within the wires as ideas run dry and those who strive to make a non-derivative noise become ever-more marginalised and increasingly avant so as not to be coated in a soporific cultural emulsion. I don’t know which is worse, but I fear the latter much more.

Isolée. The Go Find. Studio Pankow. Ryan Teague. Catrina Pratter. Intricate. Ommm. Monolake. Karl Marx Stadt. Phrizzm… I could, and would, go on were it not for my word count and your boredom threshold. But, as this truncated list proves, 2005 has thus far produced a bumper crop of digital types all making music that is both decisively of its time yet nonetheless seems to posses that special seasoning which renders it (potentially…) era less. However the fact still remains that the disparate genres which fall within the broad electronically charged remit tend to be routinely shunned even by those who consider themselves way left of centre and likely have a Hütter, Schmitz, Schneider and Hilpert writing credit amongst their collection. How then should the digerati go about reconnecting with a broader audience that extends beyond the Sónar devotees and show those whose opinions become ever more galvanised with each new ‘funny noise’ flecked bout of tail chasing or four to the floor drudgery that is released that the future is indeed bright, discerning and radiant? Well getting some Boy Robot down their ears would be a pretty good start.

Having met in the oh-so glamorous environs of the software industry, Hans Möller and Michael Zorn embraced their shared vision of better living through electricity on 2003’s Glamorizing Corporote Lifestyle. With Möller’s releases as Balderdash and Zorn’s solo work (see 2004’s All We Can Do Is Enjoy The Ride for homework…) watching their backs, the German based duo set about complementing and updating their sound for the mid-point of this startlingly formless decade. Possessing a sound which undoubtedly has a season ticket for the Trans-Europe Express, Rotten Cocktails is not however an inert re-run of electronica’s greatest hits and rather constitutes a vivacious plundering of existing techniques and material, all knitted together in a beautifully unimpaired and unrivalled union.

Opening with a lopsided clutch of analogue ingots (doffing the cap to Surgeon’s remix of LFO’s “Nurture”), Rotten Cocktails stammers into life through the serrated IDM and ragged chunky-knit beats of “Magic Toys for Girls & Boys.” Unwavering in its strangely cathartic intent, Boy Robot soon extend the remit introduced here onto the Plaid-inflected power surge of “Invaders of Vanity Clubland”. Mixing a broad wash of atmospherics with needle sharp beats may be nothing new, but Boy Robot succeed in capturing that special quality which Kraftwerk distilled down into their compositions; energy. With much of electronica’s population preferring to keep the emotionally tacit and feet itchingly raw in separate rooms, Zorn and Möller tear out the quarantine and create a dirty hybrid that is knee quiveringly irresistible. Undoubtedly one of the most successful examples of this is the quite extraordinary “We Accept All Our Parents Credit Cards,” wherein a sweat stained bag of special discount French filterhouse is left to languidly (yet insistently) unfurl amongst an Eno’s worth of bucolic fuzz whilst tiptoeing around Orbital’s “Chime.” Ungainly on paper maybe, but spilling forth from your speakers “We Accept All Our Parents Credit Cards” feels like a frenetic hug from a good friend.

Deciding where to go next on an album choc-a-bloc with coruscating standouts is nigh on impossible, but special mention should go to the utterly supine microsound/IDM of “Sweet Honeybee of Infinity,” the spasming disco stomp of “Super Scorer” and the truly gorgeous “Bass & Booze,” where Sheffield’s electronic heritage is given a 21st Century jumpstart with enchanting results.

Reverential without being sycophantic, revitalising without becoming imperious and, most importantly, resolutely individual without resorting to a box of MSG cheap tricks, Rotten Cocktails is an electronic masterpiece that formidably transcends any notion of genre. Possessing a visceral thrill which cannot fail to ignite any music lover, Boy Robot have provided a phosphorescent beacon in the dark for all those who have become lost and disillusioned with perceived digital diminishing returns. The good stuff is still there so let’s just hope that Boy Robot spurs enough people back into the water to rediscover its scope and greatness. Yet however good it may be, I still fear that most won’t even get as far as dipping their toe into Rotten Cocktails’s shimmering lagoon. But that’s their loss, not ours.