GREIE GUT FRAKTION: Baustelle (Monika Enterprise)

themilkman on Jul 30th 2010 01:11 am

Greie Gut Fraktion: Baustelle

GREIE GUT FRAKTION
Baustelle
MONIKA69
Monika Enterprise 2010
11 Tracks. 49mins59secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

One theory is that, in times of great financial turmoil, major building enterprise can contribute to support the economy by creating jobs. Construction is also the corner stone to the collaborative project of Antye Greie-Fuchs and Gudrun Gut, who operate here as Greie Gut Fraktion. Expectedly, Baustelle, the German word for ‘building site’, is a rather diverse and complex collection of electronic avant-pop which goes well beyond the pair’s respective work.

The two women began working together after Greie invited Gut to collaborate on a commission for the BBC’s Late Junction program two years ago. Following this project, they came up with the basic idea for Baustelle and laid the foundations for the record in Greie’s studio in Finland. Ensued months of further recordings and exchange between Gudrun Gut’s Berlin base and Antye Greie’s Finnish home, on the northern island of Hailuoto, before the album was finally ready.

Released on Gut’s Monika Enterprise, Baustelle partly feeds on Greie’s experimental vocal approach, which range from whispered spoken word, often cut up and over-layered to expose entirely new messages or alter any perception of what is actually being said, to rare sung sections, in both English and German. Continue Reading »

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VARIOUS ARTISTS: Monika Bärchen: Songs for Bruno, Knut and Tom (Monika Enterprise)

Robert Rowlands on Mar 19th 2008 10:54 pm

V/A: Monika Bärchen: Songs for Bruno, Knut and Tom

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Monika Bärchen: Songs for Bruno, Knut and Tom
Monika60
Monika Enterprise 2008
15 Tracks. 54 mins 44 secs

As the adage goes, wherever you bite a stick of rock, the word inside it is the same. And so it goes with this birthday prize of a compilation – wherever you look, the same eye-widening sense of newness and fun is on show. This tenth anniversary package of the German Monika Enterprise label is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not really what you would expect. Rather than resurrecting hip, effortless tracks that passed unnoticed a decade ago, Gut here brings together a collection of entirely new songs, all by long-time Monika stable-mates. But the intriguing thing is that, on first listen, this really does sound like a best-of in the worthiest sense – an album of career-defining classics. From Capri Sun electro guitar pop to underground polka techno, everything here just seems to fit.

It is a liberating album as much as anything else – one that, in just fifteen songs, sums up the casual, effervescent daring of the label itself. Continue Reading »

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