Gelbart – Gelbart-TK-745 (Kitchen Leg Records) – A tape release and more from Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Adi Gelbart, this time diving into “a raw, guitar-driven sound world, full of psych-garage energy and synth weirdness”. Some of it sounds as collaged as the cover artwork (up there), here’s a video that goes with one of the pieces of music…
“The album comes less than a year after his previous release, Liquids & Flesh, and features new works alongside pieces he has been performing live for 15 years, now recorded for the first time. The title comes from the Grundig TK-745, a budget 1970s reel-to-reel tape machine Gelbart used for drums, drum machines, and other elements such as Dutch consumer-grade plastic mics from the same era, along with basic tape effects, rounded out the DIY setup, leaving the sound dirty and beautiful…”
That is a deliciously raw start, beautiful piece of guitar feedback before things get properly strange in an art of noise robot gone rogue kind of way. Bits of Link Wray, bits of Devo, lots of bits of Link Wray messing with Devo actually; it all feels rather under control, never feral, never running wild, more thought about than that, crafted, considered, put together in a thoughtful way when often these thing can be just thrown together. True, some of it does sound like music made on toys, like Gilbart is toying with us, playing with us, some of it sounds primitive in the best of ways, some of it sounds like it want to morph into 70s TV themes, delightfully so. Some of it is lush, lush full-bodied art rock (or art something), all of it very easy to listen to, cleverly so. Clever play with basic tape effects, with a “rounded out the DIY setup” and a sound bother dirty and beautifully rewarding once you let it flow around you…
Previously…
THE ORGAN 