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Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) Cd reviews
Amsterdam's Staalplaat label has been releasing a series called Mort Aux Vaches over the last few years which has included Flying Saucer Attack, White Winged Moth, Charlemagne Palestine, Pan Sonic, Piano Magic, and many others. The series is limited to 1000, and here is the U.S. of A. we are lucky enough to get to pay import prices for them. Though some of the Mort Aux Vaches series aren't worth the cost of an import (damn you Charlemagne!!), most of the series are great and worth the extra cost and effort needed to buy them.
So when a quality label like Staalplaat and an incredibly talented band like Kreidler team up, you make sure to take notice. And, Kreidler's issue of Mort Aux Vaches doesn't disappoint. It contains over 10 songs, and while they are mostly new recordings of songs found on their other releases, these versions were recorded in December of 1997 for their VPRO radio session, the songs are quite different than the way they turned out as finished songs on their albums.
On "She Woke Up and the World had Changed" and "Shaun," Kreidler perfectly mix their strong bass melodies with real drums, organic beats, and electronic noise. Both songs could fit in easily along with Millions Now Living Will Never Die era Tortoise, but Kreidler are more interested in movement and less interested in being a jazz band. Songs like "Automatic Tunnel" and "Good Morning City" are songs based on driving, repeating bass riffs that just seem to go on forever with tight solid drumming and bouncy moog noises flowing over the top.
Kreidler's issue of the Mort Aux Vaches is a wonderful addition to a wonderful series, and definitely worth picking up even with import prices.
Daron Gardner, Fakejazz, UK 5 2001 trav, De:bug D 12 1999 ... top.
live reviews and previews
KREIDLER post rocking Thursday 15th April 1999, 13th Note Club, Clyde Street Support from El Hombre Trajeado and Karamasov.
A visit from a post-rock band is something we at the Note can't resist, so Dusseldorf's Kreidler should be a blast. Their album - "Appearance & The Park" was warmly received by those in the know last year, and they were due to play at the Note in May 1998 - unfortunately cancelling. "...interlocking hypnotic rhythms and simple staccato 'melodies' over the top. There are no great slabs of sound or drones present, space is used as a stark canvas for the tapestry of notes and beats to stand out and be noticed rather than be smothered somewhere in the mix." This show is a must for all fans of the more bleepy and strange rhythmic qualities of Tortoise, Can, NEU!, Pink Floyd, BBC Radiophonic Workshop LPs and Ui. Techno sequencing, resonating dub reggae bass lines, random keyboard blips and haunting strings? Ja bitte.
NN, 13th Note, Glasgow , SCT 04 1999 ... top.
features
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ROCK KREIDLER
Formed Düsseldorf, Germany, 1994
Initially starting out as a backing band for spoken-word performers, and following on from their Deux Baleines Blanches incarnation, Andrew Reihse (synthesizer, sampler, stylophone), Thomas Klein (drums) and Stefan Schneider (bass) formed Kreidler in spring of 1994. Recruiting DJ Detlef Weinrich (sampler, stylophone, rhythm boxes) after their first gig, the band set out playing clubs and performance spaces on Germany's growing electronic underground circuit.
Their first release was the cassette-only Riva (Autumn 1994; Contresens) was followed by a vinyl-only mini-LP the next year, produced by Matthias Arfmann of veteran industrial dub outfit Kastrierten Philosophen. Released on Köln's small Finlayson label, this LP and the cassette brought Kreidler attention from around Germany for their developing electronic rock sound, and a distribution deal for their Kiff SM label with the German branch of Belgian independent Play It Again Sam.
The result was Weekend (1996; Kiff SM/PIAS), an album which received praise at home and abroad, placing them firmly in the growing cluster of new electronic bands appearing from the edges of the German techno scene. As with contemporaries Mouse On Mars and To Rococo Rot (in which Schneider also plays bass), Kreidler mix dub, rock and electronica in a style similar to (but identifiably different from) such British and American (so-called) post-rockers as Ui, Tortoise or Seefeel. Further connections have been drawn to Seventies German legends Can and Kraftwerk; though the comparison is probably unavoidable, their sound draws more from Eighties pop influences while remaining Nineties to the hilt. However, Reihse made an unsurprising connection with the group's precursors when he joined former NEU! legend Klaus Dinger's La! NEU? for both live and studio albums in 1997.
An awesome live act, Kreidler followed on the success of Weekend with annual European tours, including a support slot for warped electro-funksters Red Snapper. A 7" single "Kookai" and the Resport remix album in 1997 for Stewardess in Düsseldorf preceded the excellent 12" EP "Fechterin" (Kiff SM), taking them further into the realms of abstracted electronics and analogue rhythmic hybridization. The group's second album proper, Appearance and The Park (Spring 1998) revealed a broadly developed sound and a comprehensive grasp of the late Nineties' interface of post-rock and electronica.
Check out the Kreidler Website.
Weekend (1996; Kiff SM/Play It Again Sam) Looped bleeps and loping dub bass, occasional telephones and unidentifiable sounds fused into highly-developed instrumental trance-outs. A classic of the European flavour of post-rock.
Resport (1997; Stewardess) Various remixers, including To Rococo Rot's Robert Lippok and the unusually-named Erik >>> MMM, reconstruct non-album material into dub and art-breakbeat formats. An admirable companion to Kreidler's own releases.
Appearance and The Park (1998; Kiff SM/PIAS) A highly-developed, slightly skewed interaction of sampled sound with German experimental rock traditions.
Contemplatative and rhythmically entrancing with a (slightly) poppier feel, as exemplified by the accompanying "Au-Pair" single, and even some languid vocals on "Coldness". Above all, civilized music. Richard Fontenoy, The Rough Guide To Rock, USA 1999
Kreidler admit to appropriating their moniker, and by implication their general music making aesthetic, from an old 50cc motorcycle with "a cheap hi-tech look". Thomas Klein (drums), Andreas Reihse (push-buttoned and keyed instruments), Stefan Schneider (bass, monokeyboard) and Detlef Weinrich (electronica) create contemporary electronic music with an experimental core but refuse to be typecast as mere studio boffins:
"There's a lot of hype about electronic acts working in a scientific way", they assert, "but that's not our goal. People are happy to see us as 'that weird German band'", bemoan Kreidler, "but we never set out to be like that."
The Düsseldorf, Germany-based quartet combine free wheeling rhythms and whirring electronics with the precision of the neuro-surgeon. Seeming to have rid themselves of the last vestiges of rock 'n' roll impulse (they eschew narcotics except beer and coffee), Kreidler create their music through constant debate, reappraisal and self-criticism. This perpetual process of critical evaluation is intended to safeguard them against cliché and unwanted outside influence. Bass player Schneider (who left Kreidler in 1998 to concentrate on To Rococo Rot) told UK music magazine The Wire that this deliberate music-making-through-teamwork approach "sometimes feels a bit like going to the office".
For the single release 'Coldness' remix duties were delegated to like-minded electronica luminaries such as Daniel Miller of Mute Records and Studio !K7"s Shantel. These remodelled versions drew the best from Kreidler, making their pop core more explicit. Even this decision to commission remixes, however, was preceded by considered discussion between the group members about the actual point of the process.
NN, Iceberg Radio, 1999
C'est à Düsseldorf, dont ils sont originaires, que les ex-Deux Baleines Blanches, Thomas Klein, Stefan Schneider et Andreas Reihse ont fait la connaissance du quatrième: Detlef Weinrich lors d'une performance musicale dans une école d'art et ont décidé de former le groupe Kreidler.
L'été 1994 a officialisé le groupe avec l'enregistrement de "Riva" sorti sur le label parisien A Contresens. On pourrait définir leur musique comme un savant mélange de musiques électroniques et de pop. Souvent comparés à la scène krautrock, ils sont certainement les humbles descendants des groupes allemands des années quatre-vingts comme : NEU!, Kraftwerk et Cluster.
Depuis l'album "Weekend", ils imposent un style personnel riche de mélodies dont les basses ronronnantes, les batteries souples et subtiles se fondent autour de samples et de sons de synthétiseurs hypnotiques.
NN, Peace Warrior 10 F 1999 ... top. |