Kling Klang announces its arrival with a clatter
that never pauses for the following 56 minutes. The
forthright skitter of ride cymbals marches forward like
a tall man in stack heels sliding across a frozen lake.
Sounds like there are at least three percussionists
at work knocking and banging all sorts of things together.
Somewhere on the scene there is also a bass player thumbing
out methodical shapes not unlike Peter Hook at his most
lethargically insouciant. Here It Comes indeed.
This sounds like the ‘80s circa A Certain Ratio
– same enthusiastic drive, same stripped down
sound.
Nightfood and its successors carry on in like
fashion. There are some further ingredients added to
the sparse brew of the opener. Vocal and more abstract
samples are subjected to stretching, echo boxes and
so on. These embellishments suggest another group of
similar vintage to the aforementioned ACR and New Order
references, namely Cabaret Voltaire. There is a similar
sense of alienation and bleakness though Tussle win
out in the funky stakes: Kling Klang grooves!
Disco D’Oro, for example, is the sort
of dubbed out floor-filler that would be ideal to perk
up lagging dancers in the most flea-bitten of dives.
If you like Tussle’s sound then you may welcome
Kling Klang’s relentless drive –
for those less enamoured, it may just drive you crazy.
If you’ve read Simon Reynolds’ Rip It
Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 and are
wondering to yourself where that attitude and sound
ended up in 2005, you could do worse than give this
a spin.
Colin Buttimer
3/5 |
