From Kent Williams Sent Mon, Oct 18th 1999, 14:47
From Kent Williams Sent Mon, Oct 18th 1999, 14:47
This was labeled by the record store guy "Thomas Brinkmann" but on the whole this CD is pretty mysterious. "Soul Center*" is a division of W.v.B. Is all the labeling on the CD. No actual production credits given... This CD is a collection of brinkmann/brinkmann-esque perpetual motion tracks. Everything is anchored by a 120bpm 4 to floor kick, but the method here is to build a deconstructed version of funk music from short samples of 70's funk records. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing -- I love a lot of Thomas Brinkmann because he seems to have taken a very dry, intellectual analysis of techno and minimalism and stretched it to it's absurd logical conclusion. Like someone's comment that Kraftwerk are "so stiff they're funky," the tracks here use a combination of endless repetition alongside slow buildups and breakdowns to build sneaky subliminal grooves. The use of samples from old records changes the character of this music from the normal Brinkmann stuff, which is based on a hermetically sealed set of abstract machine sounds. Repeated endlessly, the gospel hum of "Honey" (Sweet Honey in the Rock, maybe?) detaches from it's original context and becomes an abstract chunk of sound. The vinyl surface noise through repetition becomes a gentle sandpapery internal rhythm. All in all a very listenable collection of cool tracks, highly recommended. kent williams -- xxxx@xxxxxx.xxx