slightly suspect post-Soviet soundscape

[usyukuro sound space]

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Various (splits)
Various (compilations)


Overdose Kunst - Was Ist Overdose Kunst?
3" CD-R, Zhelezobeton, 2007


Overdose Kunst - Was Ist Overdose Kunst?

Seeing the track title "Requia for Ethnic Cleansing" on a release on Russian post-industrial label/distributor Zhelozebeton could lead you to imagine something very different to what this actually is. Rather than a dystopian and even slightly suspect post-Soviet soundscape, what you get here is a real oddity - a Japanese act producing what they call "schizopoetry" in a jumbled mixture of various languages.
What this amounts to is a truly strange and esoteric brew which may intoxicate some but will drive away others on first exposure. It will appeal to those seeking something truly strange and hard to imagine. With four tracks and lasting little more than 20 minutes this is a very concentrated dose of 'whatever this is.' The music is proudly irrational and even childlike, deliberately nonsensical and (mostly) terminally obscure.
"Partizan" features desultory acoustic guitar and mumbled, painful, vaguely Tom Waits-like vocals, which is fine if you like that sort of thing. "Ono Sendai" is the best produced and most interesting track. It's a sorted of haunted indietronica that slowly builds into an ambient piece on the lines of Steve Reich's guitar pieces and has a strange charm. "Kurz-y-nuy" returns to a Tom Waits style vocal underpinned by what sounds like a reverse tape loop. "Requia for ethnic cleansing" itself is equally charming and irritating, the falsetto vocal is mournful and evocative. This is offset by muzak elements and what again seems to be a reverse effect. For me this triggers a strange reminder of (and desire to listen to) the dystopian reverse funk of the Bunker Records project Shitcluster, masters of this technique. Eventually gunfire sounds intrude towards the end of the track but in a curiously polite and modest way.
In its own terms and for whatever target audience (if any) that it may have, this brief collection is probably a brilliant success, but its appeal will definitely be limited - this one is only for true connoisseurs of weirdness.

-- Alexei Monroe [4/10]