Monday, November 29, 2004  5:03 pm 

Mobius vs Conan

Moebius,Plank,Neumeier- Pitch Control

I have no idea how to describe this track.

It is from the album Zero Set.

I could tell you this track is !!!s latest remix by Maurice Fulton, released next week and most of you would believe me.

I could tell you this track was recorded in 1982 by Juan Atkins, Grandmaster Flash and Brian Eno, and most of you would believe me.

I could talk about how a world music drummer Mani Neumeier who played heavy free jazz with Guru Guru freaked out so much while playing along with electronic poly rhythms and invented grooves as distinctive as Numbers/Planet Rock.

I could talk about how Clusters Dieter Moebius treated the instruments like kids toys and used his own coughing as a beat and Sudanese vocals as a treated scratch effect which sounds like the pet cat of Ari up happily riding a pony.

We could talk about the Conny Plank with his distinctive sound and infinite grasp of what was to become ageless proto techno dance influential blah blah whatever*…(*which is probably all rubbish, cos Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox or any other major selling dj would never listen to this, and all the house or techno djs I know think Kraftwerk is boring old shit without any proper tunes, and don’t give a monkeys about Plank but are partial to a bit of Gary Numan or Human League).

We could talk about how many layers of rhythmic noise there can be on one track and it still be minimal and controlled with such ferocious accuracy.

All of this makes me sound like an aging anal obsessive muso crackpot though, so instead blip scratch bleep whap kitten purring horse neighing coughing squelchy kraut electro. Yah we like these crazy people having fun. A bit like if Can had a go at being the Tom Tom Club. Not many super groups are actually super, but this is.

Talking about Super groups, Oneida might not be quite there yet, but its members are three guys who call themselves Papa Crazy, Hanoi Jane, Fat Bobby and Kid Millions. That’s a good start, plus they are engaged in some sort of medieval quest that, with that extreme good taste associated to certain strains of eccentricity blends…

…kraut (teutonic alchemists working in strange labs in the neverending search of the philosopher’s stone and knights pounding their enemy’s skulls with double handed swords or maybe big hammers)

…hard rock (Barbarians from the north eating hearts, painting in strange colours and going berserk, sailing in funny ships and perhaps discovering America etc.)

…psychedelia (Druids concocting mind bending potions in huge bronze cauldrons and scaring little children, they hide poisonous darts in their beards)

…heavy droning (infidel dervishes twisting forever with the abandon of a mathematician engaged in the ultimate demonstration, going crazy in the process, sure thing)

…and even some synths (blasphemous monks using arcane bits of knowledge that survived the collapse of Ancient Civilizations to build bizarre metalic contraptions from which the strangest sounds can be obtained)

Oneida’s last album, ‘Secret Wars’ (out on Rough Trade early this year) contained one of the best songs of 2004, Caesar’s Column, which I’m amazed no mp3 blog I know of has posted to this day…

Oneida-Caesar’s Column

So yeah, listen to it, it’s inhabited by all the tribes mentioned above, see how it grows in a sick spiral from a frantic drum start (and stop) through to a dark forest full of witches (Oneida are best mates with Liars, with whom they released the split ep Atheists Reconsider, by the way) finally reaching a clear where it gets just on time for you to witness the first ray of the moon hitting the tip of a monolyth and a weird beast starting to materialise, its shadow a castle-wall crumbling bassline…Yeah, throw for sanity now dude, you’ve got a minus twenty penalty for not being christian, ah, you failed! let me check the mental illness table, 75, that is catatonia, sorry, you’re going to be soooo dead…yeah, I know it’s a shame, you were level 10 and all, don’t start crying, for chrissakes, you’re embarrassing us!!!

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