Review | By Martin P / Musique Machine
Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
Here’s a rather odd package from Gruenrekorder, which consists of a printed piece of cardboard with a CD attached to the reverse, and a booklet held on with a rubber band – it’s unclear if this is conceptual or just pragmatic and somewhat ugly. The CD contains one long 42-minute track, ‘Stadt [Land Fluss],’ based on the music theatre piece of the same name by Daniel Kötter and Hannes Seidl, whilst the booklet compiles text from the piece and photographs from a performance of it. ‘Stadt [Land Fluss]’ explores issues of urban space, urban planning, architectural design, and the politics of the urban. The 42-minute track is an odd beast, equal parts engaging and, frankly, less-engaging. To summarise crudely, the piece is dominated by dark drones and enigmatic micro-sounds, and pounding electroacoustic sounds and raw field recordings; there are all manner of electronic noises, the scraping of guitars, aeroplanes flying overhead, rhythmic techno-esque sections, primitive whines, and obscure tones. []