Trait - Inspirationals CD
This 2009 reissue of a 1988 Arbeit Group tape remains one of the cheaper, and most available, Industrial Recollections releases for some reason; it could well have become way rarer by now if the noise market focused on sonic content rather than random factors. I picked it up as an afterthought when buying other things. If nothing else, this tape looped based chaos journey underscores one fact: the 80's lacked many of the clear cut genre distinctions we've come to know in the last few decades. You literally don't know what is going on when listening to this, let alone what is going to happen next. Moving from music loops over terrible noise assaults, to subtle cracklings and sudden and unexpected silences, this stuff cannot be predicted in any way what so ever. This is stimulating, and makes it almost impossible to shut it off (at least during the first playthrough). When you add a warm, lo-fi quality, left virtually untouched by whatever mastering was applied to this recording before its publishing on CD, you're left with a very nice piece of industrial indeed. The cover is unassuming, but contains a manifesto written in pseudo-academic swenglish. Its self indulgent tone and consistent use of capital letters leads the mind to Rote Armee Fraktion communiques, a stylistic connection that may quite possibly be intentional, but the contents is some kind of radical individualist thingie. Not at all offensive, but it did annoy the shit out of me. Perhaps this terrible piece of teenage philosophy is the reason the CD is so cheap? All kidding aside, this is great stuff. The first track is the most rampantly insane one, whereas the second one (there are only two) is somewhat more conventional or at least less confusing. Both are fucking awesome.
Drink: S-market light lager pint with a shot of gin.