Labels: Minimal Resource Manipulation
Review by: Captain Fidanza
Someone I lived with in 1999, had an album by a Japanese band called Guitar Wolf which featured a truly insane cover of Eddie Cochran’s fifties classic “Summertime Blues.” If you’ve never heard of Guitar Wolf, there were three members who each played a different instrument; here are their names;
Guitar Wolf
Bass Wolf
Drum Wolf
So I suppose they must really like wolves in the part of Japan where this band came from or maybe really hate wolves and were attempting trying to satirise them.
Anyway, the album we had in our house was called “Jet Generation” and had a sticker on it which said something like,
DANGER! THIS IS THE LOUDEST RECORD EVER MADE! BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU PLAY IT ON YOUR STEREO!
When we put the record on for the first time, I was expecting my head to explode like a bayonetted melon in the fashion of that man from the beginning of Scanners. Obviously it didn’t and what’s more, any attempt to make the loudest record ever appeared to have been limited to the singer shouting a bit, so all in all it was something of a let down.
This here album by Matthew Atkins could probably claim to be the most minimal album ever made and should probably carry a sticker which warned potential purchasers of the fact. When he invented ambient music, Brian Eno called his album “Music for Airports” after experiencing feelings of anxiety in a German departure lounge, but he didn’t actually record it in an airport. This album sounds like it was.
Sections of this sound like when you get a phone call at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon from someone you haven’t spoken to for months and when you answer it, all you can hear is the sound of a pub because the dozy fucker has sat on their phone and it’s called you by mistake. Always a disconcerting experience, no matter how often it’s happened to you in the past.
I don’t really want to be negative about this album because I’ve already heard it all the way through about ten times, but it’s always been when I’ve been engaged in other things, so it’s sort of been on in the background, creating an atmosphere, an ambience if you like.
So if for any reason you would like to recreate that unique feeling of being in an airport departure lounge whilst remaining in the relative comfort of your bedroom, may I suggest the following:
Put all your clothes into a poorly designed canvas bag.
Sit on a hard plastic chair for three hours.
Buy a packet of Polos for £1.85 from someone who perpetually looks like they’re sixty seconds away from killing themselves.
Have a complete stranger sit down next to you and take their shoes off.
Put this album on.
We wish you a pleasant journey.