7/10
Ambient, avant-garde, soundscape, post-industrial: four labels that are perfectly applicable to Minenhund. But there is something more to this release than what you'd expect from an album that is bound to be categorized in these niches. A quick glance at Strotter Inst.'s gallery proves that we're not dealing with something that can be classified so easily under such a general musical denominator. Sure, the result of this remarkable Swiss-based sound architecture is an album, but the manner in which the audio is created reminds more of conceptual art. A dark audible mind trip lies ahead for those who do not fear taking a leap into a sonic universe made out of molested vinyl and rebuilt turntables.
My advised setting to take in this hour of charcoal soundbites is absolute darkness and a set of headphones with the volume set just beyond the point that is considered healthy for your hearing. Minenhund translates (freely) as a person who spends his days slaving in the depts of pitch dark mines, so if you have the chance to replicate these conditions in any way, please do so.
The most noticeable thing about Christoph Hess' latest effort as Strotter Inst. is the focus on the use of the turntable as sound creating device rather than as a sound reproducing one. Five Lenco turntables make up the main part of the instrumentation/installation; modified styluses, rubber bands, duct tape and whatnot are used to create the meditative bass and looping rhythms. The consistency of the cascading loops forms the stomping engine that guarantee the blood flowing in the maze of pseudo-industrial rhythm patterns. The novelty of this release is the actual use of a few samples in the form of French gibberish - sometimes awkwardly high-pitched like there was a helium leak in one of the underground chambers of the sonic mine. Some cuts from a marching vinyl (that seem to be slightly out of place in the big picture) serve as a welcome change in the confined sound spectrum that has an overall fatness to it provided by the analog warmth residing in the vintage parts of the installation.
Strotter Inst. managed to combine some noticeable features of fellow sound-explorer Philip Jeck and audible tale creators Xela on this release, and ended up with an epic journey from a dusty surface to mind numbing, almost claustrophobic, depths where one thing is sure - if the listener manages to make it to the end of this challenging ride, she'll be counting down to the next shift of crawling through the rumbling darkness of neo-turntablism.
written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Strotter Inst. website
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