Konntinent - Arev Benn

Bloody tapes. What's with them eh? What gives? Who said THEY could make a comeback? There used to be 10 in the stockroom. Now there's several scores of the critters. I feel like Captain Kirk with his tribbles trouble. I've got another one of the little brightly coloured spoolly bastards here and this particular item contains new sounds from former AOTW champ Konntinent. I like his name because it beffudles & frustrates Captain Phil so much. I may just get me a jacket with the word legend emblazoned on the back. He does wickedly distinctive stuff does this dude. Weirdly tribal-like in spots. Eerie mountain folk sketches with sparse organic woody percussion, quietly intoned vocals, almost hushed to a whisper. I simply adore his multi-faceted schizophrenic sound palette. Even his pulsing electronic/drone experiments sound truly absorbing. I wonder if he's recorded this with the tape medium in mind because the analogue sound really brings out the closeness & depth of the humming, pulsing, clattering & fizzing samples. There's a track on here which almost makes listening to the likes of say, Machinefabriek, a dismal, lifeless experience - an implicit aura of dub-like proportions is always on the periphery of this track. And when he does do the fumbling minimal sound-art thing, it always seems to build towards something interesting. This is very "alive" sounding music which I find thoroughly engaging. Wish I had a bloody tape player handy. Drat & Blast.