This release from Anyte Greie and Gudrun Gut for their Greie Gut Fraktion collaboration was actually a taster for the album that I was fortunate enough to review for Cyclic in June. Somehow, in the veritable cascade of soft-sleeve promos that constantly threatens to engulf the home of our editor-at-large, this release only recently made its way onto my stereo. So, from a promotional tool heralding the imminent release of a debut album, this 12” now stands completely on it’s own considerable merits.
And what a funky Teutonic merits they are too! GGF’s cover of Palais Schaumburg’s ‘Wir bauen eine neue Stadt’ was certainly one of the highlights of their Baustelle LP. Carsten Nicolai, in his Alva Noto guise turns in a mix that stretches the original’s DNA in a less sing-along, more hypnotic direction. Ghostly chord changes perfectly compliment AGF’s sexy Germanic intonation prior to the husky vox of Gudrun Gut dropping in; providing a beautifully restrained extended interlude for the non-stop erotic dancers amongst you.
Wolfgang Voigt’s Freiland Klaviermusik project is certainly coming up with the goods, in a somewhat baffling Satie-esque classical piano meets Kompakt Schaffel kind of a way, right now. Freiland Klaviermix 1 and 2 lay down a dizzyingly repetitive low piano motif locked in with a high register melody, shifting the Greie Gut Fraktion vocals in another direction all together. In a move that only Wolfgang Voigt could pull off, there is a curious Wagner-like interlude before the four to the floor rhythm reasserts itself. Perchance these mixes might induce concert pianists to get their hands dirty, or could this possibly be cabaret music for builder’s labourers?
Oliver Laing
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