Fri, 18 Jul 1997

LADYBIRD/MERZBOW

"Balance"

a review of "the first triple CD on one CD

Human Wreckords 015, Split-CD, 1997
Concept & Production: Luther Blisset [sic]
Human Wreckords operates out of POB 335 D-1925, Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30-766573, Fax: +49 (0)30-7067399, e-mail: hms@is.in-berlin.de

The first time I heard about this CD was a few weeks ago, when one of the Berlin Oberdadasturmfuehrers of the Luther Blissett Project wrote:

Good news: 'Human Wreckords' just released "the world's first triple CD on one CD". The left stereo track contains an album of the Berlin singer Ladybird [hypnotic-minimalistic cover versions of smash hits by Army of Lovers, Kraftwerk and others - I heard her singing at the last Super!Bierfront release party and enjoyed it as solid disco entertainment] while the right stereo track has music by the Japanese 'industrial noise' guy Merzbow. With the help of the stereo balance control, you can either listen to one of the two records or to both simultaneously. The cover credits "Luther Blissett" for the concept of the CD.

So I contacted the 'Human Wreckords' supremo, who also runs the abovementioned sleazy punxploitation hatezine in Berlin. He replied that Luther's description wasalmost right, it's just the other way around!

Then he sent me a copy of "Balance", which I've just received and... If that don't fuck all! Powerful stuff! I quote from the enclosed press release:

HUMAN WRECKORDS is proud to present their now second german-japanese collaboration after their renowned Noise-compilation "Wohlstand" (HW 012, 1995).

Who would have thought that the grandmaster of purenoise, the creator of one of the most savagely brutal and intense sounds mankind has ever heard, would one day participate in a "pop"-production. On this special release Masami Akita aka MERZBOW and the Berlin Karaoke-group LADYBIRD fusion pure noise and disco with unmerciful consequence. Dissonance and harmony amalgamate to something new and true: sometimes awful, sometimes beautiful, but never boring. The listener takes part in a somewhat twisted experience, and on this truly interactive CD he can, through the balance switch of his stereo, choose between a more noisier or more melodious mix, or even just listen to one of the two alone.

The future has begun!

HUMAN WRECKORDS is happy to be a part of it.

Well, uh, HW underestimate their own product, which is NEVER awful. I find it really beautiful: don't get the impression "Balance" is some kind of unendurable mental masturbation. There's all the sexual friction and emotional electricity of classic rock'n'roll in here too, it just comes at you from sideways angles. On the left you can hear Merzbow's "Floating Eloy", a suite presumably named after Eloy Pruystinck, the Anabaptist/Free Spirit agitator who was condemned to the stake in Antwerp in 1544. "Floating Eloy" is a 38.38 minutes long clatter-creaking-scraping-pelting-frizzling symphony which inflamed my ears. On the right there's Ladybird aka Tanja Kopecky with her backing "band" and choir, and the spirit of the supernasty early Eighties lives again: the hijack and CassandraCrossing-like odissey of the Transeurope Express + a wallpaper of moronic easy-listened electro-pop + the rotting corpse of Neue Deutsche Welle eaten by bugs and worms + terrifying reminiscences of crappy spaghetti disco + a bleak, suave female voice. The vanishing point at which the two hemispheres of your brain can't help fighting each other. Never mind Deleuze & Guattari, this is the real promenade of the schizo, and the schizo has a walkman, and the headphones are fucking his brain over. Buy it!

Luther Blissettt