New Ways to Criticize
Opaque
CON 008
(personnel not listed)
Finally, something that’ll really
clear the air. The factory makes no noise at night
when you shut it down and leave it. Or does it? Contained within are the sounds
that the factory might make on its own with no humans around and only itself to
please. Gentle Borbetomagus, in other words. A blurb enclosed says it’s
off the rails
but I don’t think it was ever on. I particularly enjoy “The No-Nonsense
Blood Smeared Pajamas” where the electronics suggest a type of Indonesian
gamelan which in turn suggests a delicate walking machine coming to life (the
factory coming into its own). There are fierce sounds here as well as delicate
passages, as in “I sank my town for you” which recalls a lonely electronic
buoy. It needs to be said that this cd fooled me. After awhile I thought it had
long since ended. What I took for ambient electrical noises in my building was
just the platter continuing on. Talk about blending in. ( Eno was smiling
somewhere). It was only when the musicians got rowdy again that I realized
the cd hadn’t finished. Upstaged again.