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IN STOCK
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ARTIST
TITLE
Strategies
FORMAT
CD
LABEL
CATALOG #
BB 319CD
BB 319CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
5/24/2019
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"They say that the avant-garde moves faster than light and therefore has to travel under cover of darkness, flying blind, destination unknown. Little of today's realpolitik-related gloom casts its shadow over Strategies, the new album by restless avant-garde auteur Andreas Spechtl. On the contrary. Whereas the two preceding albums Sleep and Thinking About Tomorrow (And How To Build It) (BB 278CD/LP, 2017) documented quietly intimate, personal journeys along the margins of Europe or Iran, casting a skeptical eye on neoteric political shifts, Strategies is an altogether more explosive affair, buzzing with beats, effervescent with the energy of techno, dance, a celebration of resistance. The sense of unease engendered by global politics has given way to a new sense of self, to new strategies, an eagerness to escape into ecstasy, madness, anarchy. Right from the word go, as the first melodies take shape, as the first lines unfold, even as quiet, intimate moments from prior recordings linger on, a piano fades away, a saxophone passes by and then the beats kick in -- an almost anthemic 'yes, we will change the world/because we've done so/many times before' sets the euphoric tone for the rest of the album. And oh, the voice; following its disappearing act on the previous discs, it returns here on a wave of charming dandyism, dancing, screaming, whispering, moaning, striding unwaveringly, casually, aggressively, through techno, tribal and disco beats, scanning lyrics whose palpable, newly-gained coolness might just be a universal antidote against the world's political vacuum. It is also a voice which suddenly switches to Spanish on 'When We Were Young,' joined by Anna Seghers as a ghostly witness. The album was written in Santiago de Querétaro, not far from Mexico City. It was crafted mostly on a modular system and two synthesizers, without VST or digital equipment, the computer downgraded to the status of a mere multitrack recording device. Andreas Spechtl appears to have arrived at the core of his own self, all new, as if he had rewired himself amongst all the modules -- without having even tried to find himself, yet discovering someone in the circuits who had almost been forgotten or would be forgotten again, someone who only existed right there. With the philosophical and musical activism on Strategies he offers us the clearest, most readable signs pointing into the future." --Thomas Köck, January 2019.
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