Labels: Morc
Review by: Captain Fidanza
This is an awesome piece of work, although upon reflection I wonder if “awesome pieces of works” might be a more faithful description as although there are hints of a unified aesthetic across the ten tracks present here, the style and execution vary quite considerably.
From ghostly instrumentalism and jarring electronica through the apparent acoustic tributes to Jandek, the album could at times be the soundtrack to an unreleased film from Jan Svankmajer. If the CD came with one of those industrial documentaries from the 1950’s showing the many intricacies of an enormous power station at work, it would be an almost perfect accompaniment.
The much lamented Oliver Postgate is in here somewhere too, sitting at the back of the recording studio playing Double Dragon 2 on a Megadrive whilst a metronome issues it’s indefatigable tick. Postgate doesn’t give a flying fuck about navigating Billy and Jimmy Lee through that difficult second level in the sawmill, he just wants the background music to appear on this album, which it does, so well done him.
This is an album of surprises. A collection of works which at one moment can act like a mild grate upon the ear and at the next, conjure the echo of Carl Orff’s music from Badlands and it is here that the album hides it’s greatest triumph, somehow enabling its weft and warp to coexist in continuing harmony.
So well done Jandek, well done Svankmajer, well done Postgate, well done the Lee brothers, well done Orff and well done Wappenhalter, this album took one hell of a listening.
Thanks to Bjorge Lillelien.