Cobra Killer & Kapajkos

What’s a group to do when their scene or fashionable music style suddenly dies? Well, when you’re Berlin electroclash duo Cobra Killer, you throw away your samplers and drum machines and bring in a mandolin orchestra to perform new, redirected versions of your songs. No, I’m not kidding — Gina V. D’Orio and Annika Line Trost have done just that, and the results are nothing short of awesome. These recreations — of such catchy, jaunty, retro-minded throwbacks as "Heavy Rotation,” "Show Me Your Ruler” and "The Stoker” — place Cobra Killer’s sound more in line with classic female post-punk acts like the Raincoats and LiLiPUT than electroclash mainstays Adult. or the Hacker, which is a very good thing. Das Mandolinenorchester glides along with expert energy, as the six-piece Kapajkos mandolin orchestra pluck and strum their way through a dozen of Cobra Killer’s finest English and German sung selections. This is an engaging curiosity piece that somehow manages to combine aspects of punk attitude and high-art refinement into something totally original.