Mandolin From Mars
I love that Krispen's newest release is called "Mandolin from Mars", a rather pat title that might associate with, say, a progressive bluegrass album. Nothing of the sort; it's much more Mars than mandolin.
It begins with "Unintelligible Archetypal Babble", a track which is as much a mouthful as its title. One would assume a human vocal is the source, and maybe mandolin too, but both are somehow transmogrified into some of the strangest extraterrestial voices I've ever heard - indeed, a babble, though it certainly makes for lively conversation. "Astrophonic Dreams in the Tube" could easily serve as a horror movie soundtrack - complete with creaky doors, spooky gusts of wind, and demonic voices.
In general, the clean crispness of the mandolin makes a very nice sound source for the crazed sonic treatments, ranging from simple echoes to analog-synth-like filter sweeps and spatial static. Sometimes, as in "Trenches", Derek Bailey scrapes and slides imply an army of metal cockroaches on the move, which, finally, attack. And sometimes the conversation between the exploratory, nontonal mandolin phrases and the guttural devil screams of bizarre laptop processing sound like a tiny astronaut searching for the right words to implore the Vogon ship commander to set him free.
The extended 22-minute "Reanimation" (apparently a live track) begins with wandering strings of cowbells, leading to random things being drily repeated, like small engines turning on and off. The scraps of live percussion on this track are particularly effective at bringing a very immediate, corporeal presence to what is otherwise something existing mainly in alternate planes. Around the halfway point, a drone begins, and a number of repeats begin to beat together, almost threatening to become a "tune"...which instead disintegrates into tortured digideroo growls. At the end of the tune, finally, is a sort of payoff, with the mandolin climbing madly toward a climax.
Krispen clearly can play his instruments, which makes the occasional scrap of cohesive melody in this wholly abstract and often jarring world of sound even more valuable. First fascinating as evidence of how many sounds have yet to be created by man and machine, this document of a very wide-eyed expedition into the unknown may be unlike anything you've heard, yet still manages to hang together as music. Recommended for the brave.
(I love the sensationalist artwork too...)
Fragments
On this particular recording (the man is a wide-ranging artist) Hartung specializes in interplanetary soundscapes, full of oddly twisted guitars that repeat like babbling creatures and all kinds of far-off noises that may or may not be powered by solar wind. "Mork og Iser" sounds like gyoto monks being encircled by serpents. "Attack of the Mini Tabla" somehow finds a sexy rhythm in the confusion, unlikely as that is. That plus the shocking bongo solo make it seem like a scrap of Jobim that made its way to another galaxy through a rip in the fabric of the universe, and somehow managed to jam along with the three-headed natives. The last track, "Nebula", is gorgeous, its lush emotion brought into even sharper relief by the stark obliquity of the preceding tracks. All in all, it's a wonderful and strange ride through a place very few have visited, and only those with powerful telescopes and deep imagination have even glimpsed.