Kling Klang - The Esthetik of Destruction

  by Sarah Maybank

published: 3 / 4 / 2007

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Review

Back in 1984 German industrial noisemeisters Einsturzende Neubauten performed 'Concerto For Voice and Machinery II', using road drills, a jackhammer and a chainsaw, at London’s posh ICA. It stoked middle class, beard-stroking art types into such a frenzy that they mounted a stage invasion. If title of 'The Esthetics of Destruction' doesn’t give you a clue as to what Kling Klang are about, flick, if you will, to the centre pages of the CD insert. Concrete flooring. Sheet metal. An arc welder. Oh, yes. Splinter factions of musicians are still hammering contemporary urban angst and alienation into chunks of challenging, confrontational art. And prompting staid, publicly funded venues country-wide to spend a fortune on crowd control barriers just in case. Coming on like Neubauten’s krautrock-obsessed younger brother, Kling Klang mess up trebly Stereolab-ish synths, electronic sound washes, kinetic rhythms and random squelchy noises and come up with something throbbing with hallucinatory unease. 'Esthetics' will have you alternately visualising multi-stomached Return Of The Jedi torture-creature, the Sarlacc, with acid reflux ('Superposition 1)', prog-rock hero Rick Wakeman rolling over his bank of keyboards in an open-to-the-waist Spandex all-in-one ('Heavydale'), and being stalked by a slightly insane cyber-harpsichordist ('Radium'). Really, it’s that disturbing. Melody-wise there’s something both creepy and futuristic about this retrospective that could have it sound-tracking a Hammer House of Horror flick set 300 years in the future. But, like most uncompromising art, it’s too sonically antagonistic for one sitting – unless you regularly spend time dosed-up on behaviour-modifying medication in padded rooms. Stick it on your iPod, though, and put it on shuffle when you’re playing it in public and it’ll give it a pleasingly avant-garde edge that’ll stop your tune selection resembling 'Now That’s What I Call Indie 67'. By the way Kling Klang, if you ever want to prove you’ve got a sense of humour, we suggest art-prankishly wangling a DJ spot at your local Jumpin’ Jaks, taking a blowtorch to the 'Grease Megamix' and S Club 7 CDs and subjecting the WKD-ed up revellers to a greatest hits set of your stuff. Pre-arranged escape routes strongly recommended, mind.

Track Listing:-

1 Heavydale
2 Superposition 1
3 Flying Hotel
4 Vander
5 Scanner
6 Apex
7 Rocker
8 Tesla's Future War
9 Nexus
10 Red Cuffs
11 Radio Hotel
12 Untitled@33RPM
13 Superposition 2
14 Radium
15 H'vydale
16 Heavydale

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