Jan 17, 2009

Alles Gute hat sein Ende, especially when chucked across the room

Stefan Betke's started his career as the influential techno experimentalist Pole when he dropped a piece of music equipment (pictured, suitably rearranged) and the resulting crackles it produced became alluring to him.

As Pole releases his new 12" Alles Gute/Alles Klar, two dubby tracks of scratchy Underworld in slow motion, I decided to have a go at becoming an influential techno experimentalist. I decided to create music through destruction.

I began my smashing in my television with the fridge (and not a cat as I nearly did on Mercury prize night). I wanted to throw the fridge at the TV, but it proved too bulky to carry - and suprisingly hot - so instead I hurled the telly at the fridge. Screen first.

The telly no longer made any noise, but now my fridge is emitting a threatening hum. I like it.

Shooting my sandwich maker with an air rifle proved to be a more tricky affair. I don't own an air rifle. Nor a sandwich maker. So I went into Argos, and flicked an elastic band at a picture of a sandwich maker.

This failed to produce any interesting noise.

I then re-tuned my DAB digital radio to Radio 2. This produced a frightening noise, which is too horrific-- no-- too chilling to describe here.

So I shall stick with Pole. The A-side Alles Gute is the better track. It's a gloopy groove where the spaces are filled with buzzes and sub-bass. Alles Klar, the one featured on his Round Black Ghosts dubstep compilation, is slower and moodier, cutting its own rhythm in a choking post-rock apocalypse.

3 comments:

steve said...

Yeah, Pole - nice! I think Pansonic made a career out of broken equipment as well. I found the simple act of turning the TV to a white noise channel and turning the volume up and down in a rhythmic fashion works well, as does the radio.

Fat Roland said...

Heh. You don't know how many times I've done that, and actually believe I'm making fantastic music.

Anonymous said...

Yep, haha! I've got a very old cassette somewhere where I was shifting back and forth from a death metal radio program to a evangelical speech - the stations were right next to each other. I thought i was being pretty clever at the time. Love to find that tape again, just for a good laugh. In the meantime, a little off topic, but here's a link to an excellent free compilation I found off LastFM. All great artists, kind of in the BOC vein - that hip hop IDM. Enjoy!

http://www.last.fm/music/Various+Artists/Wasted+Magic+in+the+Sound