<<<

DE[kkk]ODER "Tehnogennaya_filosofia" [2008/2009] new
Antichristian Commando Zine #2 (WINTER/SPRING 2010)

Maybe it's the first time that I devote myself to listening with much attention to an album like this; the project DE[kkk]ODER is from Russia, made with care in 500 copies in A5 hand numbered and seems to be the first official full length of this musical proposal. I wish immediately to point out that with these words I don't want to include this work in the countless ranks of soulless electronic album, interested only to experiment new and trendy avant-garde sounds. NukkklerGOTH (hidden mind behind this project) take care however this aspect but creating a fusion also with the traditional instruments, giving a vision of a personal electronic music and proposed in various forms and facets, proving to possess a remarkable and various background. We can define "Òåõíîãåííàÿôèëîñîôèÿ" ("The anthropogenic philosophy") as a union between classic sounds revisited in modern terms, electronic music and industrial. A real "mental movie" composed by illusions and futuristic concepts, when the same mechanisms and tools created by the man come to life and begin a great and impossible war, rebelling against their creators, perhaps the only true children of a society increasingly away from the spiritual values. There are several eccentric moments when I was surprised, for example when there appear some beautiful violins in "׸ðíûå äûðû Âàëüãàëëû ", ("Black Holes of Valhalla") or in the opera sampler parts in "Èíñòàëëÿöèÿ Àóðû" ("Installation of aura") mixed with noises, typically industrial. " Ìàðø" ("Parade") is the track with the most sought after sonorities, with a very charming carrier melody, where the battle reaches its height with the defeat of the anonymous humans. Surprisingly a good proposal that offers a sophisticated and committed electronic, an apocalyptic and symphonic soundtrack; I would like to conclude this review using the words that the careful and amazing label Casus Belli Musica has attached in the end of the presentation of the album that they've send to me: "It's a War For A Place Under the Sun... And The Sun is the only winner in this War." Blooddawn

DE[kkk]ODER "Tehnogennaya_filosofia" [2008/2009]
Heathen Harvest 01.04.2010

Northern Russia’s DE[kkk]ODER bring us a remarkably mixed bag of nine electro-industrial/ambient dance tunes on this, their debut(?) album, on the Russian label Casus Belli Musica. Treatments vary enormously, from breakbeat to experimental, from ambient to sub-gabba, although for the most part it doesn’t stray very far from the general dance music prescription we’re all familiar with. And I think my problem with it is that it’s just too diverse and disparate.
While I am aware that there has to be a modicum of variety across an album, the breadth of styles here points more to a bitty, piecemeal approach, rather than to any intellectual or conceptual reason for such a way of doing things. Track one for example, ’Clash of Mechanical Structures’, gets into its stride from the get-go, a driving breakbeat rhythm motoring us along at a speed fast enough to crush. And then we get ‘Installation Aura’ unexpectedly coming at us directly out of left-field, which flips styles faster than you can say “what the...?” and tosses us into avant-garde experimentalist territory. Freeform, unstructured machine noise over sparse bangings and crashings provide the backdrop for an incongruously superimposed recording of a tenor voice singing a Russian song of some description. As much as I like experimentalism, I am not entirely convinced by this one.
With yet another change of style, ‘Ultraviolet’, a mid-tempo ambient dance workout flavoured with subtle hints of 80s/90s period Ashra/Manuel Gottsching/Tangerine Dream, sashays into view and has its turn in the limelight next. In its favour, though it does have a pleasingly hypnotic and beguiling ambience. And then onto ‘Cosmic Cold’ - a hefty slice of techno breakbeat, with some added dark ambience and ghostly voices thrown in for measure. This is about as unrepresentative of cosmic cold as one can get – the inclusion of wind noises just doesn’t cut it and has the unfortunate effect of nullifying any atmosphere it was trying to create.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture by now. This album jumps from here to there stylistically, without pausing for breath and without managing to achieve anything for its efforts. But, before you think me completely churlish, it isn’t without its merits, it has to be said – ‘Black Holes Valhalla’ is a fine example of relaxing industrial ambient, as good as anything I have heard. Imagine Deep Forest deciding to go the industrial route and injecting some bite into their music and this is probably what you’d get. Follow-on piece and title track, ‘Technogenic Philosophy’, has a nice line in understated hair-curling menace about it, the sort of menace that will quite happily wait patiently for its prey to attempt a desperate, but ultimately hopeless, escape before pouncing. And for sheer contrast, the bright dancy poppiness of ‘Conveyor Abundance’ possesses an instant appeal all of its own, and wouldn’t be out of place on a dancefloor in some metropolitan club on a weekend.
Listening to it again, it’s not that bad an album, but it’s just too piecemeal for my liking. It gives me the impression that it desperately wants to be everything to everyone, but by covering a whole spectrum of styles it has only managed to weaken its case. If it had just decided what it wanted to be right from the very start and stuck to it, then I think this would have ultimately been a much better album, stylistically and also in terms of conceptual coherence. Plus I found the repetition of motifs unhelpful, as it parlayed a lack of internal musical progression and the pieces, as much as I liked some of them, didn’t really go anywhere. But having said all that, it does have one saving grace: it all comes together in the final song, ‘So Tempered Steel!’, which takes all of the tropes and elements of dirty techno, the heavy, filthy bass-lines and rocket-engine beats, and mashes it all up with an absolutely wicked snake-charming woodwind motif on top, producing an absolute beast of a track. This is definitely my favourite track on here: it’s just a pity that I had to wait until the end of the album to get to it. A bit mixed this one. S:M:J63

DE[kkk]ODER "Tehnogennaya_filosofia" [2008/2009]
Mroczna Strefa 04.11.2009
Mark: 9/10

Jak sie okazuje, w Rosji pojawia sie coraz wiecej prezentujacych co najmniej niezly poziom projektow parajacych sie elektronika w roznych postaciach. Nie mowimy tu o scenie klubowej, techno, house etc., ale o wymagajacej skupienia mrocznej muzie tworzonej przy uzyciu tradycyjnego instrumentarium i komputera. Juz nie tylko BUBEN czy RE-DRUM, lecz takze DE[KKK]ODER wkrotce moze sie liczyc w tym elitarnym swiatku. Tym bardziej, ze projekt NukkklerGOTH'a, choc rowniez eksperymentuje z dzwiekiem, to nie zapuszcza sie az tak bardzo w awangarde czy ambient, ale tez nie przegina z wtlaczaniem modnych nowinek, pomijajac moze dwa ostatnie numery na plycie, w ktorych pobrzmiewa ostre electro. Pokrotce mozna stwierdzic, ze "The Anthropogenic Philosophy" to taka quasi-filmowa elektronika oparta na cyber-dzwiekach, tradycyjnej el-muzyce, industrialu i nielicznych elementach folkowo-jazzowych. O dziwo z tego misz-maszu roznych wplywow wyszla zgrabna calosc, w dodatku jeszcze doskonale brzmiaca. Nie mam pojecia, czy tworca DE[KKK]ODER ma za soba jakiekolwiek znaczace doswiadczenia muzyczne, ale wiem na pewno, ze umie wlasciwie poukladac poszczegolne dzwieki, nakladac je na siebie, by tworzyly spojna calosc i w efekcie przykuc uwage swoja propozycja. Album opowiada pewna historie rodem z ambitnych japonskich mang i anime, ktora mozna w kilku slowach okreslic jako wizje przyszlosci, gdy mechanizmy stworzone przez czlowieka otrzymuja swoj wlasny byt, ale tak jak ludzie, w koncu zaczynaja prowadzic obledna wojne. Organizmy te popelniaja te same bledy co ich stworcy i kieruja sie ku nieuchronnemu samounicestwieniu. Muzyka jest zrobiona z rozmachem, ukazujac poszczegolne etapy wprowadzania tej swoistej technokracji: od jej zaczatkow, az po ostateczna rozgrywke. Jest odpowiednia dramaturgia, dzwieki bywaja melodyjne i rytmiczne, po czym po chwili staja sie bardziej zgrzytliwe, tym samym burzac pozornie wzniosly i "filmowy" klimat. Tu i owdzie, dla wzbogacenia muzycznej materii, pojawia sie partia skrzypiec ("Black Holes of Valhalla") i "komputerowe" dudy ("This Way Steel Was Tempered!") oraz - co dosc rzadkie w elektronice - takze punktowanie gitary basowej (nie wnikam juz, czy jest to faktycznie strunowy bas). Dodatkowo w "Installation of Aura" NukkklerGOTH wykorzystal operowy kawalek, mieszajac go z industrialnym halasem. Jeszcze raz podkresle swietny sound tego materialu, ktory z cyber-dokladnoscia wdziera sie do naszego swiata, wnoszac pewien apokaliptyczny posmak i symfoniczno - filmowa monumentalnosc. Wysmienita pozycja dla smakoszy wyrafinowanej i przemyslanej elektroniki. Diovis

DE[kkk]ODER "Tehnogennaya_filosofia" [2008/2009]
Rock Storm 22-09-2009

Vydavatelstvi Casubellimusica se nezabyva jen metalem. Jeji hudebni zaber je mnohem pestrejsi, tomu napovida i vydanim alba Tehnogennaya_filosofia od skupiny (tvurce) DE[kkk]ODER ktere je souzvukem tonu a hluku maje nabuzovat pocity.
Rekneme ze jde o urcitou formu Noise a Noise Core. Pro lepsi predstavivost jde o Ruskou obdobu Napalmed. Tak a mate to. Tomu posluchaci, ktery ulita na tomto hudebnim zanru bude DE[kkk]ODER dalsim sberatelskym kouskem. Vicero je snad lepe si vyslechnout z ukazek prurezu tvorby, ktery najdete na strankach kapely a nebo na strankach vydavatelsvi.
Zde vytah z jejich oznaceni. Jde o volny preklad.
Zvuky umirajici kultury a deformovane duchovni hodnoty prinaseji fragmenty znalosti neklidu lidskeho hlasu. Skripeni vrtacky, brouseni - zvuky zeleza v tele. Zvraceni intelektu. Montaz aury.
Zivot leti vesmirem s rychlosti svetla - vleti do montovane konstrukce zname jako "Clovek". Rovnym bleskem jako zastavku ultrafialoveho zareni vleti do oci...
Socialni oblast - strach s jeho rozsahu. Vse existujici je vedeno jen v jednom okamziku. A nic kolem, ale spousta pravdy, ktera hori kosmickym chladem.
Filozofie Antropogenni je objektivni poznani reality prostrednictvim technickeho pokroku 'protetickych pomucek. Je zboznenim technokracie!
Takze opravdu doporucuji nejprve poslechnout nejakou tu mp3. Alan