Thursday 2 July 2009

Work/Death - Excuse me but I think you dropped something [three songs of Lenin]

Listening through this, my third Work/Death tape of the last three weeks, I suddenly realised I have no idea what his ‘main instrument’ is. I guess it’s probably the inevitable synth, although I actually prefer the image of him sat behind a Bontempi Chord organ, reel to reel player and the mandatory tangle of stomp boxes. In fact, if I were to really follow my imagination then Reber would be the sort of person who trawls around the English countryside in search of empty churches on uninhabited hillsides, and when finding one would switch on the Organ, wire up several microphones in acoustically perverse positions ) in and around the building: a couple inside the bass pipes, one in the guttering outside, and one at the far wall of the church, so close that the refectling sound waves cause grinding distortion. Then wait for the wind to howl, and let blast a heavy, ecstatic dirge of taped down keys and drawbar manipulation, all the while monitoring and mixing the levels of the various microphones, and cutting and running before the Verger gets a phone call. The sound of several giant harmonicas strapped to a jet engine in flight, which gives him an idea for his next tape. But I guess he’s using a synth, eh?

1 comment:

  1. Would you happen to have any contact information for Scott Reber/Three Songs of Lenin, or do you only order through Mimaroglu? I'd like to see if he has any spare copies left of these fast-disappearing tapes.

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