Waffelpung
Storeslem LP
Luftwaffel (not the same label as Luftwaffel records, Trondheim)

This is exactly the kind of record that gives me serious trouble to review. Do I love it or hate it? Both. Is it ugly or beautiful? Both. Is it noisy or quiet? Both. Is it full of clichés or fresh ideas? Both. This kind of dualistic approach to the art of releasing a record must be deliberate the way it permeates everything here. Like the sleeve - an ugly picture and an ugly font in a very nice red-brown tint set against a white background. In this ugly-beautiful sleeve we find a fantastic 220g heavy black slab of vinyl. Audiophile vinyl and lo-fi recordings... Lots of inlays in this record (a good thing in itself), some ordinary and some spectacular - the story of this LP. I especially appreciate the how-to-use-a-vinyl-record manual. Much needed these days.

And the music itself, ranging from American type power electronics to beautiful droning. Clichés like speeches of Adolf Hitler almost drowning in noise-loops is done better by Whitehouse and a host of industrial bad boys, but at other times they combine sounds and rhythms in fresh and surprising ways. Like the oddly named song "Pål Jackman" (for our non-Norwegian readers: this is the name of a young film director and musician from Stavanger), where percussive elements get combined with some Merzbowian electronics with still enough room to breathe. Elegant and quite stylish. My favourite. A very small pressing of this was done and it's not easy to get hold of, but directly from the bands own mail-order should still be possible.

Copyright © 2002 Killer