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By: Ilker Yucel
Editor

Soothing atmospheres of electronic goodness, providing a pleasant escape from the world’s turmoil.

As proven by information on their web site, the duo of Grundik Kasyansky and Slava Smelovsky have amassed an impressive resume of film and theatre music. Thus, it should come as no surprise that their album …For Electronics and Birds showcases a cinematic quality of lush symphonic ambience and ever-changing motifs and progressions. Most of the tracks clock in at well under five minutes, with two even passing the 10-minute mark, giving the impression that the music must be dramatically intricate and complex. While there are moments of intricacy, they are primarily relegated to the production work, which this reviewer is almost sad to admit is becoming the only saving grace for a variety of bands and artists today. The short length of the majority of these tracks makes for a series of spring-like vignettes, with any vocals done by a collection of sampled bird calls, tweets, and chirps; all except for “Lost Fado,” which features Victoria Hanna as an ambient voice to complement the airy washes of electronic treatments. The song is somewhat reminiscent of Kanno Yoko’s soundtracks for the anime, Macross Plus. There is a fairly minimalist outlook going on with most of these songs, featuring little more than light beats for the sake of rhythm, twinkling arpeggios that seem almost bell-like (particularly appropriate to the aptly titled “Music Box”), and plenty of pad sounds to put the listener into a psychedelic trance. It would be unfair to say this is not a pleasant collection of music. On the contrary, some of these tracks feature some clever electronic manipulations of sound and the atmospheres created give slight impressions of melody. Songs that are of interest are “Music For Mr. Ambient,” with its IDM-like waves of arpeggios and static blips, and “Pianka Do Golenia,” which sounds somewhere between Latin Jazz and French vaudeville; a very quirky track indeed. …For Electronics and Birds is not a bad album by any stretch, nor does it lack in interesting moments of ear candy. Yet, at the same time, there is a wonder as to just what audience would this album be best suited for. It is a very pleasant album, almost too much so; not to the point of being unbearably happy, but rather to the sense that there’s not much substance to the emotional appeal to the music, if there is any. Then again, with all the angst and turmoil going on in the world today, perhaps it’s for the best that there are artists like Grundik+Slava to bring a little audio joy.

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Being aware of, but having not heard their prior album on Stateart, this is my first introduction to this experimental duo from Israel.

So, if you approach this album with caution and are willing to either make use the skip button, or program out those tracks that don’t work so well, there are some gems to be found here.

RJS

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Grundik + Slava aus Israel legen mit „Frogs“ ein sehr experimentelles Werk vor. Es ist das 2. Werk aus der Reihe „Fauna“. Das ganze erschien auf dem Topheth Prophet / Auris Media Label, wo auch schon die “Der Blutharsch – Israel CD” erschienen ist. Nun, was kann man zu einer Cd sagen, die den Fröschen gewidmet ist?

Wie man es wahrscheinlich vermutet, wird man auf allen zehn Liedern dieser CD mit einer Art “Teichambiente” versorgt. Von quaken bis hin zum zirpen der Grillen wird das volle Spektrum an Geräuschen geboten, die der Teich und seine Umgebung so bieten. Eine Ausnahme bildet Titel 10, das mit mehr Rauschen versehen ist.

Durchgehend werden elektronische Klänge und ritueller Gesang gemischt, vereinzelt kommt auch mal eine Gitarre und eine Bassgitarre zum Einsatz. Für den eben genanten rituellen Gesang zeichnet sich Victoria Hanna verantwortlich. Sie lieh ihre Stimme ganzen 5 Titeln der CD. Weitere Gastmusiker sind noch Igor Krutogolov (Bassgitarre), sowie Vadim Gusis von Chaos As Shelter.

Sicher eine sehr interessante Erscheinung im Experimental / Ritual Electro Sektor und ein Kauftip für Freunde dieser Musik. Auch das Cover ist ansehnlich gestaltet. Man sieht, wie sollte man es auch anders erwarten, einen Frosch auf weißem Hintergrund und enthält ein kleines Poster.

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Ok yep, a frog concept album from Israeli sound artists and electronic duo Grundik Igor Kasyansky and Slava Smelovsky. In fact frogs are mentioned in pretty much every song title, such as a frog gets over his fear of water and the old frogs dream. But why frogs? “Only frogs know,” says the cd tray, and that is the only explanation we receive. Interestingly their apparent humorous obsession is not necessarily represented by their sounds. Rather Frogs is an incredibly evocative, somewhat moving foray into electro acoustic work, melding field recordings (of frogs and other things) with electronics, and vocals. Predominantly ambient drone based work, the vocals come courtesy of Jerusalem singer Victoria Hanna who provides sweeping cries, chanting moans, strange gibberish and vocal improvisations, interspersed with field recordings of crickets, water, birds and of course frogs. It truly is an amazing listen, with the duo creating an otherworldly sound, that can be favorably linked to the earlier work of The Animal Collective or the Throbbing Gristle’s more ambient soundscapy work. I’s that compelling, well crafted and dynamic. These guys are clearly masters of the assemblage and Frogs is an incredible example of avant electronica, dreamy drone and psycho folk all coming together as one big happy amphibious family.

Bob Baker Fish
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