Double CD
It's an especially big one from the Discreet crew this week - a three-CD set by Gothenburg Sound Workshop that collects together the two LPs from last year alongside 50 minutes of new music. That's a lot of sound workshopping! The music from those first two records isn't exactly easy to locate (something in itself that makes this CD so necessary), though if you were fortunate enough to obtain a copy of either of those records you'll remember them for their particularly singular type of icey synth minimalism - minimalism, indeed, being the operative word. The songs are invariably long, and are comprised of little more than endlessly repeated synth refrains and ostensibly analogue textures, seemingly adhering to the Cageian philosophy that if something is boring for two minutes, do it for four minutes, if it's boring for four minutes, do it for eight, and so on and so on forever and ever amen. The four new tracks explore similar territory, some Berlin School atmospherics, library music spookiness, and a little of the alien textures of Werkbund, Civilistjävel! and, if we're selecting something more contemporary, a long form version of Gewissen. Outer-edge electronics, basically, but the kind that spends a lot of time glaring inwards into the infinite void of where one's soul might once have been. It's a bit spiritual and psychedelic in that respect, and a hell of a trip when taken on all at once. The kind of music for which the CD was perfectly designed.
