Tohuwabohu
Nonplace
If you’re the sort that loves Orlando’s Accidental Music Festivals, you’ll love this eclectic roundup of worldwide indigenous cultural rhythms and obscure instruments. This project unites Germany’s Burnt Freidman with his countryman Saam Schlamminger; they’ve scoured the third world for frame drums and other oddities of distant local scenes. They’ve layered up four tracks here, all vocal-free but containing complex time signatures that grow as you loop through the tracks. I can’t identify any track names, but I suspect that’s just a Western conceit we expect to be layered on the complexities of world music.
Track one starts with a buzzing “tissue over a comb” sound; drum beats and complex tappings arise and a single bass string reverberates in the background. Track two features a glockenspiel-like tinkly note; it rides high over looped sounds that are on some fuzzy median line between human throats and industrial processing. By track three you’re either in love with this effort or you’re ready to poke your eyes out with a fork. I lean toward the former. There’s clearly some metal-complicated coding in this slightly ominous track, almost like a really intense scene in a ’60s spy flick. I’ll give this project a tentative “thumbs up,” but you need to check the samples before you commit, as this is sound is not for everyone.
