Apparently, I buy too many records

My wife Helen, like every other woman i've ever lived with, believes that I buy too many records.

Which, as every record-buying man knows, is a ridiculous belief.

I will concede, however, that I do indeed buy a lot of records and that I don't afford them the same amount of listens and attention that I did 20 or 30 years ago.

To this end, I have decided to blog about the records that I buy, in order to help my appreciation of them - and perhaps to show Helen that I don't buy that many records after all.

Because i'm crap with deadlines the blog posts will be sporadic and probably be about a month or 2 behind but that's just the way i am! The posts will not necessarily be actual reviews (most likely comments, at best) and will generally be pretty damn short due to the reasons outlined above. As a writer in a previous existence i have decided not to worry about writing as art in the pieces but, instead, to attempt to convey feeling over semantic (and often grammatic) perfection.

And 'OCRB'? It stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Record Buying' - a little known mental health affliction that is potentially damaging to the bank account but ultimately life-affirming. It is sad.......but a nice form of sad.

Monday, 5 December 2011

C-Schulz & Hajsch: Untitled (Sonig)

Reminding me very strongly of fellow German Thomas Koner's near-perfect 'La Barca', this exercise in sound art crossed with (often) acoustic ambience is hugely effective. The field recordings of street noise, voices and the surrounding areas mix closely with the synth drones as the other instruments (guitars, melodica, accordion, harmonium, piano, clarinet, flute, horn, sax, tuba, percussion) weave in and out of the mix. Add to this the impressive array of non traditional instruments (we have three separate people playing window shades on here - as well as bricks, fire and 'concrete sounds') and the result is a spell-bindingly hypnotic mix of the familiar and the utterly unpredictable.

Other reviews have likened this to some Nurse With Wound releases but i feel that's an unfair comparison  as this album often feels far more musically constructed than the average NWW and this musicality mixing with the minutes of sounds is what gives it its dichotomous strength.

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