Monday, March 26, 2007

Joseph Suchy - Entskidoo,CD,2000,Germany

If Clinic can be touted as "innovators of modern music" then the being that claims to be Cologne based guitarist Joseph Suchy must be some trans-dimensional hyper-entity who beamed back here from the future to show us the true path to giddy innovative heights. Herr Suchy seems intent on pushing the six strings through as much laptop grop as he can, and he can play the ass off the plank to boot. His busy soloing is still just about recognisable as such much of the time despite persistant machine deconstruction and particle accelerator bombardment. The main chunk of 'Entskidoo' is comprised of two suites of vertiginous improvised computer mangled guitar meltdown. It's a soundscape in constant flux - canvasses splattered red, quickly speckled yellow and pink and then filled in with pulsating green triangles, or at least that's how the synaesthetic analysis was testing last time I sniffed it. It'll probably appeal to fans of the rightly lauded Fennesz and laptop / concrete side of Jim 'Chicagonogood' O'Rourke, and could give both of them a powerbook diddling to remember! This ought to get anyone who drooled over 'Endless Summer' equally hot and bothered. It also marks the first Entenpfuhl release on CD, but the vinyl version has a much nicer sleeve. The alpha section of the first side opens with a cute little twang that fires slight recall of J Mascis' contribution to the 'Guitarrorists' compilation, but is somewhat more meandering and freeform. This soon takes a darker turn as it duets with ominous digital rumble and rapid click. For a fleeting partial clue, imagine Merzbow doing Hawaiian music for a few seconds. The guitar playing speeds up and cuts loose and the hard drive effects get denser and dronier as the track progresses through crisp vistas of happy noise. At the end of the first suite (vinyl side one) Suchy spews xylophone patters over churning groans. There is always some kind of abstracted melodic pull no matter how many distorted effects Suchy layers on. Some new idea springs forth every few inches and there always seem to be new sounds lurking in each listen. The second suite (side 2 of the record) builds up dense crescendos until dropping back to multi tracked clean guitar picking out a coda, as if to show the bare bones that "Entskidoo" hung it's dissonant diginoise flesh on. The last couple of tracks are self contained and appear on a 7" single in the limited vinyl edition. "Gump" sets a simple chiming riff that recalls Colin Newman's 'Singing Fish' amidst a sea of swirling off kilter digi-flotsam, and seems to be a more compact and eloquent statement of the same intent that fired the bulk of the preceding long player. "Tijovo" takes a very different tack with some unadorned sparse (presumably) improvised guitar plucking accompanied by (double?) bass and soft singing from Yvonne Cornelius. Overall I give this record an X and a Q although I'm not sure if the record can make good use of such rare letters. In case you're wondering, that's a good thing. If his three previous albums on Tonschacht, Grob and Whatness are even half this inventive then they'll be well worth investigating. - Graeme Rowland
From Braineashed

As requested!
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes!, you rule mutant sounds—I tried ordering this from forced exposure like nine times, but no dice & they still claim to carry this title on their website. Joseph Suchy's guitarisms are a huge inspiration for me, fans of Fennesz should grab this now though this is much different than Fennesz, it does in fact have a similar vibe, especially in the way Suchy transitions between passages. This is in deed a Spring season post, no better way to ease into the humidity of Summer than w/ this & some blindspots.

Holler!
panagiotis A. stathis

Anonymous said...

by the way—track 4 is 5 & 5 is 4
just thought i'd let everyone know

panagiotis

Atlantis Audio Archive said...

a little bird tells me that vinyl copies of this including the bonus 7" are still available at: www.atlantisrecords.com

Anonymous said...

You're right, panagiotis.
After performing the switch you're mentioning, here's the correct tracknaming:
01 Entskidoo A, Index 1 (6:45)
02 Entskidoo A, Index 2 (5:29)
03 Entskidoo A, Index 3 (5:58)
04 Entskidoo B, Index 4 (5:07)
05 Entskidoo B, Index 5 (3:01)
06 Entskidoo B, Index 6 (5:59)
07 Entskidoo B, Index 7 (1:44)
08 Gump, Index 8 (4:54)
09 Tijovo, Index 9 (6:31)


Thanks again to mutantsounds for sharing this marvel with us,


Lex