Tu M’ are an Italian duo who take their moniker
from Duchamp’s final painting which depicts amongst
other things, a pointing finger and a bicycle wheel.
The image’s Dadaist humorousness finds its analogue
in the work of Tu m’. Wake Up unites
plucked acoustic guitar with gurgling electronics into
a busy current of music which it’s possible to
either be pulled along by or perhaps electrocuted. The
guitar and what sounds like a wheezy harmonium played
backwards contribute to an impression of technologised
folk that makes surprisingly engaging sense. What?
sounds like Trumpton’s factory is working overtime
and not being very happy about it at all. In fact it
seems that the production line keeps tripping over itself
and threatening to break down. It’s abrasive and
higgledy-piggledy and not something to be put on as
background music: like a few other tracks here, if such
a listening mode is attempted a headache may be the
unwelcome result. The End Of Summer is warm
and slithery, borne on slurred drums and elastic pings
(perhaps the sound of tent pegs pounded by rubber mallets?)
It’s nostalgic and entirely appropriately titled.
Something Sweet In The Coffee reprises the
acoustic guitar and mixes it with needle-sharp percussion
and a sawing viola, or similar. The outcome is reflective,
slightly trippy and carries an undertow of unease –
cyanide doesn’t taste sweet, but something of
its ilk surely does. Plum Cake continues the
practice of enjoyably domesticated titles (a relief
after far too many sub-Autechre
namings by other groups), but doesn’t live up
to its name - unless that’s the sound of beetle
mandibles chomping on said cake. What Time Is It
is all brightly-lit pink perspex, like the innards of
a Barbie Swatch watch keeping imperfect time. Humans’
Voices is peopled by a husky vocoder serenaded
by a chilly descending line. The album closes with the
burbling warmth of Mezzo Forte whose instruction
is adhered to for all of half a minute before it is
swamped by noisy humming - one last interjection of
humour.
A constant throughout Pop Involved is a sense
of mischievous playfulness, a cheeky, likeable humanity
– titles such as Our Stupid Computer
and I Can’t Get Started underline this
observation. Pop Involved is highly recommended
for fans of the interaction of dysfunctional electronica
and acoustic instrumentation – the first fellow
practitioner which springs to mind? Matmos.
Note:
Pop Involved is the second release on Irish
electronica label Fällt’s Ferric series.
Discs on this series are available as burn-to-order
items and housed in DVD-sized jewel cases which are
twice the size of standard CD cases. The case contains
a single liner card without a spine to enable identification
when shelved. The lower third of the front displays
an individually blanked edition number. There’s
clearly an ethos to the standardisation of this packaging
(perhaps a pecuniary one) though it’s not explained
on Fällt’s website. Although the punch card
design initially asserts that this is a unique release
(each allocated a different number), one probably unintended
association is the imposed uniformity of clocking in
at the factory. In fact Fällt’s website indicates
that the inspiration for this design is the IBM card
used for data processing by early mainframe computers.
Unfortunately this standardised design approach has
a slightly anonymising effect that the music has to
battle a little to shrug off (which it does successfully
do). Interestingly, such a presentation begs the question
whether music is freed or impoverished when removed
from the design metadata which normally accompanies
it. With the success of the iPod, the iTunes music store
and its competitors, the near future will be an interesting
time to observe whether people will be happy to trade
the abandonment of music’s visual trappings in
exchange for reduced cost and ease of use via wireless
networks and on-demand downloads. Put simply, on the
one hand it may be argued that an MP3 music file offers
the chance to enjoy music unalloyed and untainted by
designers’ visual interpretations, while on the
other this can be viewed as an impoverishment of an
experience which at its best approached something of
a democratic gesamtkunstwerk.
The Ferric Series appears to be an attempt on the part
of Fällt to maintain the viability of physical
product, but it may also be seen - by its standardised
packaging - as a victim of changing consumption patterns.
The label is actively exploring the options which digital
media are making available and sells some of its releases
as standard CDs as well making curated series of MP3s
available for free download from its website. This responsiveness,
together with its roster of artists, makes it a label
to watch.
Colin ButtimerI
3.5/5 |
