If there’s been one positive trend emerging from the ruins of what used to be called electronica for the last couple of years, it has been the comeback of acoustic instruments, especially the piano. There is a whole new generation of young musicians blending their electronic visions with their acoustic skills, their software tricks with the sheer craftsmanship of playing traditional instruments. Swod without a doubt are among the founding fathers of this new, almost neo-classical approach and the success of their debut “Gehen” only proved them right. “Sekunden” is more than a simple follow-up, more than what bands just do … keep on recording and eventually coming up with a second album, even though it is made of the same ingredients: Wöhrmann’s piano and drums, Doerell’s guitar bass and electronics. “We worked the same way like we did on ‘Gehen’”, Wöhrmann says. “I would record the piano and pass the the files on to Oliver. Then he would add something on top, give it back to me … recording Swod is like playing pingpong.” And yet “Sekunden” is bigger than even the band’s die-hard fans could have hoped for. The melodies are catchier, the bass is tighter, the electronics catch the general mood of the tracks even better and the drums, in all their subtlety, are funkier. On tracks like “Ja” or “Belgien”, the voice of a long dead cinema icon perfectly sets the mood, “Deer” feels like a long-awaited breeze in the blistering heat, the title track “Sekunden” brings back dreamy memories of the long-gone ambient tradition of the late 70s, “Insects” kindly disturbes the listener with it’s delicate mixture of field-recordings, warm synth patterns and almost sequenced piano and “Patinage”, in all it’s speed and glory, lets all Swod is famous for culminate in an endless loop of beauty. Then the piano fades and all one can do is to start from the beginning.