Label: Guided Missile Format: 7″
The seven inch single, that ancient hallowed artifact: Conduit of commerce, copper coin of pop song, object of reverence and disposable frisbee. Once in a very rare while one will come along to download into your daytime consciousness and unconscious reverie: A hook, a lyric and a skilfully-turned bassline, a drumming of the fingers on public transport or a bout of air guitar in private lodgings. How strange then that the single I am here to review should be an instrumental by a synthesizer trio.
Liverpool’s “Sonic No-Wave Electronic Frazz Punk” trio Kling Klang have taken the hoary old format and injected it with an anarchistic Modernism, all jagged edges and square wave aggregates. Split between the 45rpm “Rocker” and the 33rpm “Vander”, this is a definitive statement of intent. The opening crunch of a mechanical drumbox is coloured with a neon fill of fuzz organ. The undiscriminating istener could mistake it for vintage Stereolab, but after an initial fanfare across the bows we are treated to our first helping of the Kling Klang groove: It’s hard! It’s trebly! It skanks along at a fair pace with resonant frequencies that make you want to shout “Huzzah!” But then it breaks down and we are in a land of telephonic call and reponse, as if ambushed by a thuggish BBC Radiophonic Workshop. But repairs are underway and we’re back on the road again… faster, sleeker and there’s the pretty little woodwindish synth melody that sounds like the bit that you are almost willing to forgive Rick Wakeman for. There’s a big main drag and we’re brought to our destination in fine Wagnerian style.
Our B-side or main feature, “Vander”, recalls the high Jazz Opera of the french extraterrestrials Magma. The opening chords throb with futurist nostalgia but the patent skank motorism of the pay off heads inexorably for the stars. There’s this big twisting spaghetti junction in space bit that causes me to punch the air in a slighty dodgy imitation of extremist militarism, whistling Vorticist frequencies that open up great gulfs of time and space – we are so small and that synthesizer is so big. Gosh, wow sense of wonder! But all too soon, it is over.
If you remember how exciting it was when Tortoise released “Gamera” and how sad it is now that they are more likely to have you reaching for your watch than for the repeat button, if you still feel a nervy rush of excitement as the intergalactic grooves of Hawkwind‘s “Silver Machine” or “Valium Ten” kick into warp drive, if the fuzz and drumbox of Big Black‘s “Power of Independent Trucking” give you the unrealistic impression that you want to get into a knife fight with the archetype – go out and buy this single.
-Iotar-
