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The German trio
To Rococo Rot are the missing link between a lot of things:
progressive-rock, Velvet Underground, minimalism, Can, post-rock, Tibetan mantra, dub.
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Gia` autori
della cassetta To Rococo Rot (A Contresens, 1995 - Kitty Yo, 1996),
i berlinesi
To Rococo Rot di Robert e Ronald Lippock, coadiuvati dal bassista Stefan
Schreider dei Kreidler, propongono su Veiculo (Emperor Jones, 1997)
una specie di musica cosmica degli anni '70
aggiornata alle moderne istanze di trip-hop e post-ambientale.
Non tripudi fantagalattici, ma sommesse ricerche acustiche; non trattati
psicoarmonici, ma timidi quadretti impressionisti.
Se la scuola e` quella di Kraftwerk, Cluster, Neu e Can, i risultati raramente
ricordano i maestri (forse i Kraftwerk piu` robotici in He Loves Me e
Mit Dir In Der Gegend).
Semmai il Brian Eno dei brevi acquerelli ritmo-melodici.
In generale, a trionfare e` soprattutto la qualita` del suono, la cristallina
timbrica dell'elettronica, le ritmiche accuratamente vivisezionate
(i ritmi leggerini da synth-pop di Modern Homes), le
percussioni africane di Geheimnis Eines Mantels e Lips,
le linee frenetiche di dub di Extra,
il dub per androidi di Lift).
E` musica dell'evanescenza, il cui unico limite e` di essere a due passi
dal jazz estetico della ECM.
L'EP Paris 25 (Emperor Jones, 1998) contiene trenta minuti di remix
dell'album.
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With their second (or third) album, The Amateur View (Mute, 1999),
To Rococo Rot went beyond mere technique. Where the previous work had focused
on the method, on "what we are", this album develops a theory of music,
and delivers the "what we play". Emotions peek out of the robotic landscape
and organic shapes appear in the geometry of their warped spacetime.
Tracks like
Telema, Cars, Die Dinge Des Lebens,
She Loves Animals
are grounded in lovely touches, not in the (far more complex) sonic tricks.
This is their "chillout" album: a gentle, subliminal blend of hypnosis and
vitality.
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Tarwater is a parallel project launched by Ronald Lippock and Bernd Jestram
(the two have known each other since 1981).
11/6 12/10 (Kitty-Yo, 1996) is a spectacular introduction
to their synthesis of Portishead and
Nick Cave.
The robotic rhythms and alien noises are infused with romantic melodrama.
Samples, loops and computers coexist with and enhance live instruments.
The noir tale of Tar is a most original innovation to the
form of the ballad.
Conquer Rome Itself turns it into an even more lugubrious form,
like zombies reading Brecht.
Euroslut weds the threnody of the Doors' Crystal Ship and
the decadent/anthemic tone of Roxy Music.
Kleenex is a robotic blues with a de-humanized refrain a` la
Residents, ghostly noises and
renaissance-style viola.
New Brood employs rhythmic tricks, grotesque noises and alien back-up
vocals to revisit the swinging ballad of the 1950s. Second Arthyr
also sounds like a "parody" of easy-listening music.
Han Er Der Inne sets a female recitation over sprightly (and a little
cheesy) avant-jazz improvisation.
Elbow On The Quilt boasts perhaps the most adventurous arrangement,
mixing African, dub and orchestral elements with the deepest voice this side
of Cave.
The closing Inversnaid is the ultimate hypnotic, de-volute ballad,
a plain voice telling a senseless story over a looping gamelan-like pattern.
While the insistent use of recitation may be a matter of acquired taste,
Tarwater's first album was a decisive step in the direction of reforming
the song format according to a post-rock aesthetics.
Rabbit Moon Remixed (Kitty-Yo, 1998) contains remixes of their songs
by other artists.
Rabbit Moon Revisited (Capstack, 1997)
further refined their mixture of
dub, jazz and funk, with an emphasis on danceability.
Tarwater experimented with more live instruments (especially a flute) and
recited texts on Silur (Kitty-Yo, 1998 - Mute, 1999).
This album exposed their cultural (if not musical) roots: the recitals
bear more similarities to Brecht-Weill's theater than to Can's progressive-rock.
At the same time, it offered a revision of American popular music through
the lenses of German expressionism:
Visit, a psychodrama at plantation-blues pace, is perused by orchestral
flourishes that add a sense of estrangement; the
mournful The Watersample floats on a bed of random notes that
increases the sense of dejection.
The problem is that songs are not Tarwater's forte, and soon the album begins
to churn out trivial synth-pop for the lounge such as
No More Extra Time and 20 Miles Up.
Luckily, each story is complemented by an instrumental piece that seems to
work as a metaphysical commentary. In these chamber pieces Tarwater achieves a
unique fusion of futurism and expressionism, for example by coupling
industrial syncopation, synth bubbles and eerie strings in To Moauf,
or by orchestrating sparse noise around the flute in To Describe You.
Repetition is used to maximum effect in Seafrance Cezanne,
an intricate patchwork of geometric figures,
and in The Pomps Of The Subsoil, a post-modern send-up of Sixties
kitsch.
The closing V-AT is an anthemic piece of sort that repeats
a fractured melodic theme over hip-hop beats.
Overall, this is still a transitional album.
On Animals Suns And Atoms (Kitty-Yo, 2000),
Lippock croons the shamanic
Seven Ways to Fake A Perfect Skin
and the druidic The Trees
over Jestram's bold electronic soundscapes that often sound like
a mellow, psychedelic version of 1980s' synth-pop,
filtered through Laurie Anderson's postmodern deconstructions,
vivisected hip-hop rhythms, and devoluted funk/soul orchestras.
All Of The Ants Left Paris increases the similarity of these cubistic
ditties with Brian Eno's catchy pre-ambient vignettes.
The songs would be trivial lounge ballads without Jetstram's experiments.
Early Risers's robotic duo of distorted voices is set against
a dub-drenched polyrhythm.
Layered in the lengthy psychodrama Noon are
loops of piano phrases, drums reverbs and mellow strings, while the dramatic
core is a male rap against female vocalizing.
Jestram steals the show with his instrumentals:
the cinematic noir jazz of Dauphin Sun,
the exotic, intricate carillon of Song of the Moth,
the martial cosmic fantasy Babyuniverse.
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To Rococo Rot's Music Is A Hungry Ghost (Mute, 2001)
is a collaboration with disc-jockey Craig "I-Sound" Willingham,
but the real killer is the violin of Alexander Balanescu, that turns
From Dream To Daylight and Along the Route into poetic visions.
The post-nuclear disco music of The Trance Of Travel and the
industrial music of Your Secrets A Few Words showcase the German duo's
class. For A Moment is the prototype for a new kind of rock song,
that is not rock and it is not sung.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Alessandro Isopo)
To Rococo Rot: Music Is A Hungry Ghost (Mute, 2001)
è una collaborazione con il
disc-jockey
Craig "I-Sound" Willingham, ma il vero protagonista
è il
violino di Alexander Balanescu, capace di trasformare
From Dream To Daylight e Along the Route
in
visioni poetiche. La disco-music post-nucleare di
The Trance Of Travel, e la musica industriale
di
Your Secrets A Few Words fanno sfoggio della
classe del
duo tedesco. For A Moment è il prototipo
di una
nuova forma di canzone rock: qualcosa che non è
rock e non
` una canzone.
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Koelner Brett (Staubgold, 2001) documents a live performance.
Tarwater's Dwellers On The Threshold (Mute, 2002)
sounds only half-finished, or sounds like two half-finished albums
collaged together. Maybe it is not a coincidence that the pieces are
half instrumental and half sung. Lippok and Jestram seem to prefer the songs
(1985 and especially Metal Flakes), whereas the instrumentals are naive and
occasionally trivial.
To Rococo Rot
To Rococo's
Hotel Morgen (Domino, 2004) is not innovative and is not subtle.
It is merely a repetition of their favorite techniques, mostly for the sake
of their own egos. Dahlem is a diligent reading of their aesthetics.
It could as well be a left-over from
Music Is A Hungry Ghost.
Tarwater's The Needle Was Traveling (Morr Music, 2005)
excels at both instrumental passages (Across the Dial, Entry)
and song constructions (TV Blood, In a Single Place).
It only fails to muster the energy to breathe life into these pieces.
They sound like dead leaves falling from a very tall tree, hardly
making any noise in a largely silent universe. The effect is entrancing for
a few minutes, but eventually becomes mere background.
Taken From Vynil (Staugbold, 2007) compiles 12 rare vinyl-only
To Rococo Rot recordings.
Tarwater's Spider Smile (Morr Music, 2007) is as anemic and absent-minded as The Needle Was Traveling, sounding like another living-room exercise
by consummate musicians who run the tape recorder the way other middle-aged
people uncorck a bottle of wine.
To Rococo Rot's
mini-album ABC123 (Domino, 2007) was an experiment in using
digital devices instead of their usual analog electronics.
Their first album in many years, Speculation (Domino, 2010)
presented To Rococo Rot grappling with the world of dubstep, a world that they
had predated in spirit if not in technical detail.
Meanwhile, Tarwater Inside the Ships (2011)
mainly made news for the two odd covers.
"Seven Ways To Fake A Perfect Skin", "Imperator Victus",
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