Blogiarhiiv

6/14/2017

ʞık – Wormhole (2016)



  • Krautrock 
  • Alternative 
  • Electronic music 
  • Minimal techno 
  • Experimental electronica 
  • Abstract 
  • Minimalism 
  • Sound art 
  • Kraut-techno

Comment: the press notice of this issue by the home imprint Bump Foot is very short: ʞık (Karl & Karlik) is an experimental improvisational duo from Russia. Wormhole consists of three minimal tracks, although it lasts 45 minutes (the last track is a 32 minute long one). Indeed, the last track is called Einstein who was a German scientist (of Jewish heritage) because he was graduated within the German educational system and being a part of a thought paradigm within the German scientific world of which influence is hard to overestimate. Why I am talking about it because these 32 minutes used to hark back to other German influences in later times in music, more profoundly, in krautrock. Of course, krautrock as a phenomenon was a disparate one ranging from minimal traditional rock instrument driven sound (motorik) to more spaced-out synthesiser based travels (Kosmische Musik) and more abstract, experimental electronic terrains (in theory they can be divided in that way, in practice it is much problematic to do). The latest named compartment being championed by the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Organisation (a pre-Kraftwerk combo) and Asmus Tietchens can be a home pigeonhole for the Russian duo as well. It is built up on slowly changing sound sculptures, at times quite abstract and austere when music changes into smouldering electricity and vice versa and then providing rhythms and interesting sound effects to give in to more colours, mind-blowing phase shifts and effects. Furthermore, the issue can be considered a vital link between krautrock, and (minimal) techno. In a nutshell, it is a truly solid and arousing outing indeed.