Billed as a work of avant-garde hedonism, ‘Hirn Fein Hacken’ is a veritable riot of ideas and energy. A cut and paste postmodern masterwork that references artist Gustav Metzger and musical influences as diverse as The Kinks, Cpt. Beefheart, Rhys Chatham, Django Reinhart, Abner Jay, Fats Domino & Bob Dylan, ‘Hirn Fein Hacken’ combines intellectualism and enjoyment to achieve something truly radical.
The title translates as ‘get your brain chopped into pieces’, and as much ‘Hirn Fein Hacken’ draws on Autodestructive Art in its sleeve notes (and let’s take pause for a moment to allow the kaleidoscopic neon-bright op-art cover to blur the vision and trigger that migraine), it can equally seen to correspond with the principles of the Burroughs / Gysin cut-up technique, as basslines lifted from 70s cop show car chases are spliced to whirling Hammond breaks, frenzies of noise and Al Jurgensen-esque distorted vocals, left-centre funk workouts and driving, urgent rock rushes (‘Kanzla’) are all thrown into the melting pot, sometimes in the space of a single song. ‘Gurdy’ marries something resembling the Butthole surfers to a mid-section that bears an uncanny similarity to The Fall’s ‘Athlete Cured’ (or Spinal Tap’s ‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight’). The swampy ‘Bomb’ brings a change of pace and style, while elsewhere the whacked-out funk of the anally-fixated ‘Uhu’ only adds to the sensory overload.
|
The sleeze-grind of ‘I hea scho’ lang nix mea sees Raumschiff Engelmayr come on like Falco fronting an 80s industrial band, clattering percussion and gritty, fuzzed-out bass filling the airwaves before spinning into something that more closely resembles an outtake from David Bowie’s ‘Outside’. The grinding racket of ‘Fisole’ evokes Foetus at their noisiest, and the whole album is delivered with thunderous bass and at skull-cracking volume.
It’s manic, alright. And repeat listens reveal different facets – to the extent that it’s like hearing a different album each time. Unpredictable in the extreme, there really isn’t a dull moment. Warped, yes, but genius for sure.
BulBul Online
|
