Ebony Steel Band – Pan-Machine

Om Swagger

There are some pretty eccentric ideas out there, certainly regarding music; but Ian Shirley, the editor of Record Collector, may well have come up with one of the wildest.

Kraftwerk must be one of the most revered names in modern music history, and Ian has asked the internationally reputed Ebony Steel Band to interpret some of their better-known tracks in the joyful Caribbean style. I mean, it shouldn’t work really, but surprisingly it does. However, I guess it also depends how much reverence you hold for the originals or whether you feel anything is up for reinterpretation. Personally, I was intrigued to see how music that was written to be performed on the coldest of instruments could be translated to be played on a set of instruments that conjure up the joy and vitality of a street carnival.

It does work and a lot of that is down to the way that the relative subtlety of the players. They don’t try and overwhelm the listener with a wild display of playing, but instead allow the simplicity of the originals to be infused with the kind of unreal sensation of a shimmering haze that the steel drums bring. The way the sound seems to hover in the foreground as the drummer gives gentle propulsion to each track lends them a completely different feel, and although you can’t fail to recognise the tracks, they are given a sensation of otherness. Then other interesting thing is that it gives you a different perspective on such well known songs and the melody of “Computer Love” for one just shines out.

The band manages to draw a melancholy from “Tour De France” that was unexpected, and the dramatic flourish at the end of “Neon Lights” shows the band unafraid to add their own stamp on things, rather than treating them with kid gloves. The warm build up to “Space Lab” does feel spacey and they manage to generate otherworldliness and drama through their instruments, and while this is essentially repetitive music, the shimmer of the pans seems to inject some life. It is fun to listen just to the arrangements, as on the hypnotic “Europe Endless”, and to keep an ear out for unusual little tones and timbres, like the reversing beacon sound on the irresistibly dance-y “Tanzmusik”. The kit drummer even has an opportunity to let loose a little on “Kometenmelodie 2”, where the sense of ascension that defines the original is rendered really well here.

It is probably fair to say that this is not an essential purchase, but for a Kraftwerk fan who doesn’t feel too precious about the songs, Ebony Steel band’s Pan-Machine would be an enjoyable discovery, as well as those people for whom steel band music is too stuck in its own niche. Also, it would fun to play it and compare with the Balanescu Quartet versions that came out many years ago.

-Mr Olivetti-