Karl Bartos

So I know you've all been staying up late, your brain on an endless loop, legs thrashing, unable to concentrate because of one thought running through your head, "What exactly has Karl Bartos been up to?" Bartos (and since you've been losing sleep over hin, I assume you know this)was not an original member of Kraftwerk, but he played some self-constructed electronic percussion instruments on highly regarded Trans-Europe Expressway and Man-Machine, among other Kraftwerk albums. He has also been involved in a bunch of other projects including: Electronic (with Bernard Sumner andJohnny Marr), OMD (with Andy McCluskey), Information Society (USA), The Mobile Homes (Sweden), and Anthony Rother (Germany), as well as making records for his own project entitled: Electric Music.


And now he's made a new solo album.

It's called Off the Record and it is about as shiny and glossy and machine-ish-ly precise as you'd expect. The Quietus says:

Off The Record is based on a "secret acoustic diary" compiled by Bartos during his Kraftwerk days. The composer/producer extraordinaire has rifled through his "musical jottings" to create these new, remarkably fresh-sounding compositions. Dramatic opener 'Atomium' features pulsating bass, stabbing synths and narration from a heavily cybernated tour guide. "Welcome to one of the most emblematic buildings in the world..." announces Bartos, or Professor Hawking, or Twiki from Buck Rogers. Constructed for the Expo '58 World's Fair, Brussels' Atomium symbolises "the rise and fall of the atomic age". Exploring time, travel, landscape and radioactivity using electronic instrumentation and androidy vocals is all very Kraftwerkian, but this is no act of arrested replication. To the remnants of his old group's sounds, Bartos adds a harsher, almost oppressive industrial edge which even threatens to tumble into noise music at around the two-minute mark, when he hurls a bag of swirling, tempestuous fuzzery into the mix. What better way to mark his return?

I like it -- and I categorically dislike autotune, of which there is a bunch -- so why not check it out?



Also a short film called "Without a Trace of Emotion"

Reading Mojo, raking leaves…but not at the same time

Very quiet weekend. Sean was sick, though if it was swine flu, it was an extremely mild case. It’s no joke though. Twelve kids are out from his high school with confirmed swine flu, lots of others just staying home sick, and they’ve been cancelling extracurricular stuff. Also, we have lots of big trees, so there are vast quantities of leaves and pine needles to rake, which would be even more tedious than it is without the iPod. We did get into Brattleboro to buy groceries, and I stopped at the record store and bought the new Mountain Goats, which is excellent, but no way am I ready to talk about it yet, and the latest Mojo. The comp CD is all electronic music, timed to complement a big interview with Kraftwerk. This is truly not an area of expertise for me, but I am kind of enjoying it, and without anything better to say, will leave you with this video of Kraftwerk’s “The Robots.”

Phil Wilson from the June Brides

I think it was Michael who introduced me to the June Brides, so it seems only fair that I should post about a Phil Wilson cover I heard today on here. It was "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl", a Faust cover. It appears on Industrial Strength, an all-covers EP that came out on Slumberland Records in 2008...after a very long post-Brides hiatus for Wilson.

There are two mp3s up for sampling at Slumberland, both rather fragile, lo-fi and very nice.

Here's "It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl"

And "Neon Lights", originally by Kraftwerk