Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Arurmukha - 14.11.90: Ein Akustisches Psychogramm [Karlrecords 082 Promo]

A political concept album dealing with the parallel eviction of thirteen squatted houses in Berlin in 1990 produced by two well accomplished artists under a conjunctional one-off guise translating as "greedy demons"? That sounds like proper propaganda to us and even though it is a re-issue of an originally 1993-released album produced by Marc Weiser of Rechenzentrum-fame and Jürgen Hendlmeir now put on the circuit again by the Karlrecords label, an imprint we usually hold in high regards for its oftentimes excellent releases, after the original album has been out of print for 25 years we're pretty much in doubt that we're willing to back the openly anti-capitalist message and obviously heavily biased narrative and intention behind the original production uncommented because we don't roll this way and we clearly don't endorse it. And even with its Industrial-reminiscing collage-techniques, Plunderphonic-attitude, multi-tape layerings, repetetive pitch changes and a compositional approach clearly harking back to bands like Einstürzende Neubauten track titles like "Schwarzer Montag", "Tanz Auf Dem Vulkan" or "Radio Kalaschnikow" as well as oftentimes simplifying, slogan'esque and blatantly leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-establishment vocals / vocal cut-ups which make "14.11.90: Ein Akustisches Psychogramm" a document of its times probably worthwhile re-releasing for historical reasons only there's simply no workaround for the fact that this album most likely aims at an audience of political activists, squatters, leftwing communes, the so-called free radio scene, supporters of grassroot democracy and the likes of. And as we're not part of any one of the named groups both content, message and not necessarily outstanding technical execution are quite strenuous and hard to endure over the course of  16 tracks and 48 minutes. Some things are better left unearthed and forgotten and this album is one of those, not only for its obvious lack of subtlety and the misapprehension that just making a lot of noise equals political protest and implies that someone or a certain group of has a valuable point, or goals, or whatever.

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