Golden Diskó Ship – Prehistoric Ghost Party

Klangbad

It was a total surprise to find out that Golden Diskó Ship is really one person, Theresa Stroetges, a Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist – because I was struck by how much this sounds like several different bands, all vying or attention and all too polite to really push their ideas to the foreground. The production seems to place these bands in different sound chambers, so that they’re marginally aware of the intensity of the others playing but not the sounds themselves… This seems more visual than aural in its construction which again made me think that someone somewhere was wrestling with the others to retain a visual identity above and beyond the music… “That ugly guy at the back; get the hell outta my frame!” As it turns out, Theresa is a video artist as well so maybe there’s the rub.

Parts of this reminds me a little of a less psychedelic/chaotic Savaging Spires, or something that members of This Heat, Slapp Happyand Art Bears might have made for a laugh. It’s fun in small doses. It’s plinky and plonky: lots of sounds working in isolation, organs, piano, drum machine, drums, violins/violas, singing that seems above the music… It’s not essential to these ears; has too much treble and not enough bass (I’m not a particular fan of Bass as a monolith but this needs some). It’s DIY in a limited edition single sold in Rough Trade circa 1980 kind of way and if it was released then would no doubt be acclaimed/revered as a slice of exotic genius.

Actually, scratch that; I’ve no real belief in that kind of temporal fascism, this sadsack ‘I was listening to Nirvana before they sued Nirvana’ schtick (if you’ve hung around record fairs, you’ve heard that guy). The problem isn’t time, it’s format. If it was a 7″ it would work better because individual tracks are gently surreal, interesting, a little hyper… If it doesn’t really work then it’s as an album, a long player and I think a lot of bands (most?) from those Rough Trade shelves suffer from the same problems. These were times made for 45 not 33. At LP size, the fault lines of twee get in the way and you can almost hear the hair. If this had been released as three 7″ EPs, people might still be scurrying but each track undermines the next, a little. I’m loading this up to an iPod, hitting shuffle and letting tracks just appear in the midst; I’m almost certain that way down the line I’ll be checking to see if this curious, twinkly band has any albums out…

-Loki-