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Review by HEATHEN HARVEST.
CD1:
01. ”The Grim Nation” begins with a type of Der Blutharsch like announcement ala the collaboration DB did with Wumpscut, ”Achtung!”. Then there is a Madonna bass with a OMD synth and singular high-pitched tones.
02. ”Can´t We” has a Bossanova beat with rap-styled vocals. The sample says, ”Listen Carefully”.
03. ”Combat Of Rex” has factory beats, church-like organ musik, chimey beeps.
04. ”Sleeping In Winter” has a sort of ”maringay” fake commercial satire part with a goofy bass line. A girl with a vacuous reading-tone recites a story ala a pseudo-intellectual holistic meaning about good-times and pleasure it seems.
05. ”Ladder Vox” is very long, and really really really reminds me of multi-media text-based experimental composer, Robert Ashley´s postmodern ”operas” like _Atalanta_. Here the song has a beautiful male nearly-operatic voice with a cheesy loungy casio beat. It is discordant yet tropical as Fuck! A very relaxing song to drive in sherman Oaks to!
06. ”Dra mi de” is another very Robert Ashley tenor type song with a start organ, cool harmony and chord progression.
07. ”Orikono” is a beautiful 60´s Euro theme sung by a woman. Very David Lynchian! Buzzy firefly/crickets type insect synth and minimal organ chords, and Bach type motifs on another organ. Sounds like a nun´s choir with insect buzz drone at end.
08. ”Falangist Arrows” is Videogame type musick with Latin Salsa type beat, or like an oompa-loompa beer-drinking Austrian beat with fast-talking alien glossalalia in the background.
09. ”Quant La Doulce Jouvencelle” is total industrial disco 80´s beat with an eastern woman´s spirituo-groove with a little ”I mean business” type of bass-synth!
10. ”I Like It Harder” has a New Order ”Blue Monday” type drum and synth with a ”sleazy” girl saying ”is this hot enough for you?” ala Donna Summer”s ˜Oooohhh, love to love ya baby” ala ”On the Radio” album, or even more so ala Chris and Cosey´s 80â´s works with Portion Control type samples.
11. ”Musica Electronica” brings on the Coil ”the Snow”, 4AD goth guitar, Cabaret Voltaire´s ”nagnagnag”, an air-raid siren, a big dance beat, samples ala Cabaret Voltaire again, trip-out type material, then the beat gets more complicated or technoey.
12. ”Pokoljenje” has a Chris and Cosey type beat, and a Casio ala Silicon Teens. Pretty basic and simple.
CD2:
01. ”Street Violence” has a girl news broadcaster goin on about race riots in Australia. There are even some sparse sounds of the riots in there I think. This is over a Madonna-like back beat. Little wood blocks come in the percussion to denote the stupidity of the media and of the race riots both.
02. ”Conversation At Night” has a clean and crisp repeated sampled synth riff ala early nineties Los Angeles band, Supercollider who were on Emigre magazine´s label. Another beat and bass motif which suggests a slightly misanthropik statement of ”disbelief” or ”culture shock” towards the general stupidity in culture as expressed in different forms of musical signifiers, so in this case it´s not cynical even though it hints at misanthropist perspectives, the musik is too joyfully inspired for that extreme it seems. But who knows! There is a cute little hi-hat minimalist bell riff in arpeggio ala cuter and slower Phillip Glass. An adorable song! A girl reds a diary type postmodernized ”new-narrative” prose.
03. ”Only A Military Base”. This is my favorite song of the lot. It has that ”dumb people” wood blocks riff again and a similar Supercollider type riff but lower in register. The sample over and over, ”Hiroshima----a military Base!”, a type of new broadcast about attack on Hiroshima, about US congress and declaration of war. Drum rolls here and there, the the President comes in about ”Peace being restored”. Notes are of one tone only in harmony between 2 notes on synth, a peppy ”gung-ho/Let´s go” type song! Cheerful inspite of the atomic nuclear theme. The song ends with that deadpan ”a military base” sample. Obviously to denote how stupid the US was to even refer to Hiroshima as just that. Hence the befitting re-coding of the song title as ”ONLY a military base”. hahahhaha. Love Bleiburg´s sense of humour really!
04. ”Nightmare Lyrics”. bring on the Jimmy Somerville/Bronski Beat type vocals! hahahaha! Kute Philip Glass type riff again. This modulates from the major to minor with craft, and then pulls a very ”proggy” Goblins type Argento soundtrack descending chromatik bridge. The same girl reads a ”neo-prose” story in a dead-pan tone of voice almost like the valley girls who live in my apartment building who I got drunk with once.
And this is also very much ala the musik of Michael Nyman soundtracks [Drowning by Numbers, Zed in Two Knots, Pillow Book, etc]. Maybe Nyman more than Glass here? I can barely focus on the girl´s stories in these mixes as the arrangements are so catchy, trance-enducing, or interesting. But I like that type challenge with ”text-based”musik. Although is this text-based or is it synth-based? I seem to think of it as synth-based rather. It ends in a winding-down warped 70´s game show/kiddy sit-kom.
05. ”Asleep At The Wheel” has a monological one-note ostinato ala early Play it again Sam records or Wax Trax, Frontline Assembly. Then it is a crazy bell motif like some weird five-finger pattern exercise given to bad kids in piano lessons to make them become fucked-up beatnik intellectuals...Then it is RAP! Can´t really get what he is saying as the song and vocals are so fast, and I get too hypnotized with the arrangement again, like all the others previous. But since I don´t focus on rap lyrics usually or stories recited fast and buried in the mix, I don´t worry about it. But generally I am impressed with this experiment in ”fusion”. There are some trippy words that shoot through the mix like stars or fireworks. An organ goes up and down with two notes. The beat is tight as fuck. A very tidy song!
06. ”Politics Of Pressure” Then it is another drumset with lots of old-school disco beats, and an organ comes in ala MC 900 FT Jesus definitely, or Sugar Hill funk bands...And it is a recording or live? There is a quirky twisted white male rapper this time about ”everyone wants to talk politics”. Then I think it´s Rambo-like stuff in-between the man´s verses. Sounds like a game-show host rapping on serious meds or it is cool performance art! Then funk hip-hop beats that are tightly-wrapped by an industrialized adherence to rigidity.
07. ”Chameleon Phonics” has the same kute goofy guy again big-time word-play with New Order cotton-candy stuff again, and a bass and synth like Cindy Lauper ”girls just want to have fun” or something of that nature. Clap track even. Look out Talking Heads! ”Realize the the contents of your dream”.
08. ”The anthem of raging apathy” has another fragmented interjected here and there recitation by another character who sounds like a african-american woman? Then its beefy bad-ass analog synth bass line with some repetitious cheeseball synth-bell patch. Yamaha DX-7? Air Supply or Supertramp almost. Some fast beats that are quiet and metallic top the mix. Little riffs come in like someone is showing off his keyboard chops. hahahha. And of course someone might had hit the dance floor and tried to act cool and show off their dance moves all alone in a near empty club circa 1983!
09. ”The middle east reality” has another badd-ass drum and bass dialogue, and another young miss talking some news again almost inaudibly almost staged-like in the background. Then middle-eastern wailing singing comes in very distantly when she stops talking. The synth chords repeat manically, almost painfully. Ends with another ”funny” licky-riffy show-offy noodling.
10. ”One and the same” is another male character on tv who is talking politics with way too much passion in front of a crowd with cheering. Hard to make out the speech really. And on top is more of the same fast minimalist-inspired noodly, licky, riffy, pulsating, 80´s synth, drums, bass tracks. The man says ”communist party” a few times and that sticks out! So you have this thing where the musik and the text go into a push me pull me tug of war to my attention. So it functions like wall-paper musik or synth-based backdrops for text which serves as a new type of ambient-pop.
11. ”History” is the most ”black” with its new male character singing in a reggae-influenced mode, very reverbed-out easy-going, and stoney with a personal psychological ”leftist” political effect in the lyrics. The synth is very funk-based. with synthesized brass punctuation amidst extreme cheeseball 80´s riffy stylings again ala ”free-jazz” effects. The man says ”martin luther king” and that sticks out...”why so many dreamers had to die?” , he sings. ”We chose freedom”...and he has a really sweet voice.”We chose hot sex on a glorified screen”, he goes on with the funk keyboard chords and synth trumpets and it ends with another kute licky cadence.
12. ”Passions” is heavy dub blast beat with a man mumbling beneath it with tons of effects on it. The synth is almost eerie like 80´s horror movie soundtrack. Very cool patch I might add! And it then even sustains for a while then gets noodly with the mumbling man. The drums do a riff then back to their hi-hat madness with rigid industrialized dub blasts again. Then it´s discordant other synth tracks brought in to sound as ”grotesque” and ugly as possible it seems. But it doe not upset me like it might some!
13. ”Memory of Paris” immediately reminds me of Tuxedomoon/Winston Tong vocals. But the drum and bass is another one of those loungy old-people´s dance floor at the country club numbers that might make David Lynch get hard. The synth even does this thing where it sounds like your parents drunk at the casio or organ trying to switch the patches as they sight-read from a standards cheat-sheet book. Polyester pants, big wigs, and then the man seems to be crooning ala Frank Booth´s friends in Blue Velvet. Get out the Pabst Blue ribbon. Then it´s Robert Ashley´s Atalanta opera again it is clear to me, intentionally influenced or not! Frank Sinatra on Quaaludes. Your grandparents with too much bourbon and KFC? ok the point is made. next song.
14. ”Carla´s Search” is a amateurishly played blues chord progression again ala your drunk parents at the casio or organ on sunday family night. But under that is yet another tv political news talk show ala CNN with a British guy going on about something serious in interview with someone non-european. The word ”Croatia” , ”the problem with Croatia” pops out several times with another interviewee. So there it is. But again the musik is too distracting to focus on the words. Then it is the slide guitar ala Elvis playing at beach campfire gathering after a few too many beers. Little chord high-lites appear pointillistically which are kute and help uplift the general sick trudge through the quirky and grotesque all over the globe. This 2cd album is almost like the postindustrial experimental version of Disneyland´s ”It´s a small world afterall” ride.
15. ”Out of control”is bad-ass dance musik. with a definite nod to something very familiar like the band Berlin, Alphaville, Reflex, or something of that nature. Sick! A sort of ”riding on the metro” type feel. Then there are lots of sampled stuff below that that is more ”fascist” in tone and spirit. Von Thronstahl would wiggle to this one perhaps. I must say I am wigglin to it! I like this one I think. Sort of intense screaming militant man sample actually.
16. ”U Imotskom” is a man talking in another language which seems like Russian or eastern-bloc. But not sure. Then it is that similar ompa loompa casio fun night stuff again accompanying the man and his Russian Vodka. He sounds like a nice man. Then a raspy voice man comes in and itâ´s totally adorable! a horse making noises comes in as the oompas keep movin along. oom chuck oom chuck oom chuck...! More talking heads. This one goes on and on and on and on....hahahaha...ugly synth one note drone out of key comes in and just sticks there like the equipment is disfunctioning or something....
Total madness, Bleiburg! What possessed you to make this fucking quirky mondo bizarro album? hahahahah. I love you! Brilliant! meet me outside the klub!
Review by OBLIVEON.
Streng limitiert ist auch die neueste Veröffentlichung aus dem Hause Bleiburg. Fünfzig handnumerierte CDs gibt es von dieser Doppel CD, bei der der Albumtitel Programm ist und schnell deutlich wird, dass Bleiburg sich stilistisch nach wie vor nicht einordnen lassen. Keine Spur von Neofolk, Martial Art oder dunklen Ambient-Klängen, “Musique Grotesque” widmet sich in der Hauptsache Retro-Sounds aus den Achtziger Jahren, die irgendwo zwischen Minimal, Italo Pop und experimentellen Soundtracks pendeln, dementsprechend auch tanzbar ausfallen, denen aber durch die in den Songs verwendeten Samples politischer Natur eine stilistische Komponente entgegensteht, die dem Zuhörer die gute und beschwingte Laune schnell vertreibt. Sei es nun ein nukleares Horrorszenario, das da beschrieben wird, oder die Schilderung von Übergriffen aus politisch extremen Lagern. Das mag musikalisch nicht ganz einfach zu konsumieren sein, kann aber eine gewisse Faszination an sich nicht verleugnen und ist stilistisch dermassen ausserhalb aller Normen, dass es schon ein wenig Überzeugungskraft durch eine Reihe von Hördurchgängen bedarf, um mit dieser in der Tat zum Teil sehr grotesken Form künstlerischen Schaffenskraft seinen Konsens zu finden. Zu beziehen ist diese auf 50 Stück limitierte Doppel CD unter http://www.skullline.de.
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