Ah, Diskjokke what are to make of you? One minute its pan-European disco, the next you’ve turned into a mix of La Düsseldorf and Tangerine Dream.
Ah, Diskjokke what are to make of you? One minute its pan-European disco, the next you’ve turned into a mix of La Düsseldorf and Tangerine Dream.
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Ah, Diskjokke what are to make of you? One minute its pan-European disco, the next you’ve turned into a mix of La Düsseldorf and Tangerine Dream. Maybe it’s the flip side of the same coin.
Apparently this LP is the result of a commission from the Øye Festival in Norway: with a brief to go anywhere he wanted, work with anyone he chose, and make something musical. Having the equivalent of a musical lottery ticket in his pocket, Diskjokke went to Indonesia, ostensiblty to study Gamelan music. However, he didn’t: spending time instead in the city of Bandung in Java, working and recording with some local musicians called Sambasunda, and collecting audio snippets and other “found sounds”…
He sounds a perverse lad, and maybe this perversity is the touchstone of his music, for, try as I might, I can’t equate with this album with Java. Oh well.
Golotrok starts with a quasi-religious fanfare or a take on organ notes… it does sound like a church organ striking up, and it also reminds me of a Matmos track on Supreme Balloon. Make of that what you will. We soon get the bubbly undercurrent I associate with Diskjokke, there’s a dance record in here, albeit muted and not looking to impose itself on the dreaminess of the track.
Things carry on very much in the same vein throughout; with nary a beat or a thud to distract us from sailing off. I suppose it’s no coincidence that there’s a sleeping girl on the cover of the record. Nothing much happens in Mandena and Sengon– outside of a gentle interplay of some chiming noises over a throbbing synth. Or some other noises over a throbbing synth. But there again I don’t think much is meant to happen.
Just as things could mutate into a soundtrack for a pleasant afternoon at the sauna, Namida comes out of the wilderness like some great lost early 70s T-Dream track, mellotrons-ablaze and a-throbbing. It’s a marvellously airy and spiritual piece, especially when the piano turns up near the end. The T–Dream fix carries on in muted form through Naive and we get a fanfare of sorts (bells and whistles and beats included), with the upbeat Panuttup.
Lazy, accessible and a very relaxing listen. Worth your while.