Ingredients
To create your own Dent-a-like LP, you will require the following:
- Snippets of:
- incoherent distorted vocals
- sweeping swathes of noise
- seemingly random violin pickings
- and scrapings
- that buzzing sound you get when you plug your guitar in
and the contacts on the jack and socket touch in the wrong places for
a split second
- some samples you had left over from another song
- clear, melodious vocals
- an old C&W tune you had knocking around
- harmonica
- all other instruments ever invented
- and some not yet invented
- Copious quantities of:
- inventiveness
- humour
- songwriting ability
- pseudonymous musicians
- A random number-producing device of your choosing. A die for
example, or one of those scientific calculators.
Method
Take all of the above ingredients and the random number generator to
the studio. Use the generator, and some numbering system of your own
devising, to select your initial sonic arsenal from those instruments
available. Turn on the tape machine and begin playing.
Record for a week solid. Any time you feel like it, stop and change
your instrument.
At the end of the week you will have 168 hours of
unlistenable shit.
Oh. Did I miss something? Ah, yes--you need to have been doing this
for years. Better still, to have been a member of Camper Van Beethoven
and been doing it for years...
Result
The actual identity of the band is something of a mystery, although it
can be safely assumed that two ex-members of Camper did take part. To
be honest though, there's bigger mysteries to be solved here. For
example: why the album slides from the way-out experimentalism and
weirdness of make me 1 w/everything to a vaguely commercial
apex at trajectory (although featuring a riff that would shift
units on the alternative rock circuit, this remains only "vaguely
commercial" by virtue of being an instrumental. And slightly weird). It
then switches, for three songs, to country-pop before slinking off
into (speaking relatively) straightforward left-field guitar
territory. With added weirdness.
If "eclectic" to you is when Green Day change their guitar tone, or
McDonalds put two burgers in one bun, then steer clear of this
album. If however, you take your pepperoni
pizza with extra cream and can stomach the idea of an album with
something other than one song reworked ten times, then you should buy
Stimmung now.
The next album is slated to be techno. Now, where's that peanut butter
and engine oil sandwich?
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