Reviews » | Chain D.L.K. 19.06.17, 14:57
Music Reviews
Synth Pop / Electro Pop / Synth-Electronica Edit (9901) Posted by Stuart Bruce (@)
Monika Werkstatt
Artist: V.A.
Title: Monika Werkstatt
Format: CD + Vinyl
Label: Monika Enterprise (@)
Legend of German underground music Gudrun Gut’s ambitious collaborative project takes a core of new and original mellow electronic dreampop material and shares it around among more than a dozen musicians who each spin things off in different directions, before the separate threads are re-woven together into a double LP that is somehow both an original album and a remix album at the same time.
The result is an accessible and gentle group of super-soft pop electronica. “Grow”, with B. Morgenstern, has hints of Goldfrapp at their most plaintive. “Green Rain”, including Gudrun Gut herself, has a slightly more driving electro beat that keeps things moving determinedly forward but also has echoes of 80’s new wave in its vocal refrains. “M.B.T.” is a deep techno number with lovely acid squelches melding into its ambience, the only disappointment of which is when it stops abruptly after three and a half minutes when it sounds like it’s warming up into a ten-minute deep techno classic.
Other sections are darker and less radio-friendly, although all the pieces tend to stay short. “Feuerland”, with Beate Bartel, is a beatless layering of whispers and breathing voices over subtle organ sounds with a ghostly effect. “Desert Fruit” is a sinister dream poem packed with distant bass tones and approaching alienating clicks. Longest piece “Witchcraft”, with Sonae, as a familiar but effective mellow glitched soundscape of sparking electrics and long cold synth chords.
More out-there offerings include the very 90’s-flavoured pop-dub of “Ikarus” with Danielle De Picciotto- a must-listen for fans of early 90’s The Orb. The surprisingly autotuneheavy “Repetition” is more playful, almost bordering on silly, while the squelchy funk sound of “Who’s Afraid Of Justin Biber” [sic] is great fun and very Spotify-friendly, while “Ninjaness” with AGF revels in awkward 8-bit processing.
Across the two LP’s you get 87 minutes of music, but with the single CD you’re shortchanged slightly with only 66 minutes of that, losing out on the fourth LP side that has mostly original non-collaborative material credited to Werkstatt as a whole. CD listeners miss out on some of the shorter and arguably less fully-formed techno pieces, such as the ominous “join us” vocal refrain of “Workshop” with Greie Gut Fraktion, the rumbling subbasses of “Schrei” and harsh electro sounds of “555minimal”. “Invisible” has a hint of Ursula Rucker’s style about it.
While all of the musicians involved under the Monika Werkstatt umbrella are female, that really isn’t important; this is not in any way a politically feminist work. At times it could be described as feminine, but then, so can a lot of gentle electronica with soft strung-out female vocals- without having the concept explained, you definitely wouldn’t listen to it and think “that’s a women-only album”, and that, I assume, is the point.
Overall it’s a big bag of really interesting cutting-edge electronica with a broad menu. It’s a really strong collection and while not every track’s a classic, and while some of the tracks feel underbaked or at the least simply too short, there are enough strong ideas in here to make it absolutely worth checking out.