- 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.
