Been there, my Russian friend!
Needless to say, “music” or “sound” that even seems to be created by and/or for “academics” can be extremely polarizing to even the most open-minded listener. Music/film/art/literature “theory” can be pretty fascinating but it’s probably a very small segment of the population that really wants to absorb any sort of art that needs an explanation in order for you to understand or enjoy it. I don’t know what’s worse: looking at or listening to art/music/film and saying “I don’t get it.” and then having someone try to explain it to you and then you sit there and go, “Ahhh YES..o–k. NOW I see.” whether you do or not OR someone FIRST giving some sort of explanation and THEN you look or listen or whatever and suddenly you’re not letting yourself experience it with your gut; you’re putting yourself on the spot trying to make sense of it all. “Why don’t I get this? Is it over my head? Is it the artist’s fault for doing a shitty job of trying to convey whatever the “message is? Is there a message? Am I expected to have something to say when this is over to prove that I ‘get it’? It reminds me of ___. Is that ok to say? Why is this so stressful? I thought this was supposed to be fun?” Is there a happy medium between the two? Can’t you just experience/listen to/absorb something when you feel like it and just either make sense of it or just decide it’s not for you, even if it’s “explained” to you before or afterwards? Why can’t everyone just be at peace with either liking or not liking things?
Frank Rowenta is a musician/sound artist born in Aachen, Germany in 1966 who has been producing music since the 1980’s. I myself first became aware of his work with the self-titled LP by his project Grillhaus from 2004. What initially attracted me to the Grillhaus LP was, frankly, how ugly the cover was. In 2004 it wasn’t uncommon to see some pretty inept usages of basic Photoshop filters in the creation of album covers by any number of European electronic and experimental record labels, all seemingly distributed by Forced Exposure (another company with, shall we say, limited graphic design resources?). The Grillhaus LP cover looks like the result of about 1 hour of work by someone using the Photoshop free trial software CD they “borrowed” from their college computer lab. If it looked any more professional, I might not have even bothered checking it out. Sonically, Grillhaus has almost nothing in common with the IDM and more “experimental” electronic music being produced in 2004 despite cover art that would look right at home on a label like Rephlex. The first thing that comes to mind when hearing Grillhaus is 1980’s underground cassette culture, particularly artists producing audio collage works using tape manipulation, sampling and “cut-up” editing techniques. A Grillhaus cassette wouldn’t sound out of place on United Dairies, Snatch Tapes, RRR or even adjacent to the “Plunderphonics” of labels like Ralph Records or Seeland. The manipulation of samples combined with (what I can only presume to be) actual studio instrumentation blurs the lines between the uncomfortable sound of unrecognizable or out-of-context found sound and vaguely “Motorik” style krautrock grooves that weave in and out with any apparent beginning or end. Sounds that seem familiar disappear as fast as they appears. Processed electronic sounds bleed into analog without any obvious thematic continuity. At the time of release, the label described the record as “postmodern elevator music for postmodern people.” I don’t disagree, but only because I can’t come up with a better description. I’d hope that if I was recommending this record to someone I could just say, “Do you like Nurse With Wound or anything on that list of theirs that’s from Germany?” If their answer was “Yes.” I’d tell them to check it out. I wouldn’t know what else to say. Yet, I really really dig this record.
Listening to this record today, followed by Rowenta’s first collaboration with fellow sound artist Achim Flaam (who, incidentally, contributed artwork and sounds to H.N.A.S. classic 1986 LP “Melchior” on United Dairies), the much more noise-based 1992 LP “Tiefpunkte Moderner Tonkomposition” on Dradomel, I decided to look up Rowenta for the first time in awhile and see what I could find as I never knew much about the guy. The last time I checked in with him he had collaborated with fellow German sound artist Detlev Hjuler aka Kommissar Hjuler who, along with his wife, “Mama Bär” might be one of the most “Ultra Eczema” artists to ever release a record on Ultra Eczema (if that makes sense). There’s an interview with Rowenta on a German music site where he’s described as “one of the few musicians who openly admit to having an academic approach to music.” It’s an interesting interview if for no other reason it’s insight into a person whose work I’ve only ever taken at face value. I like the two records mentioned based on my own taste that’s been informed by other artists with similar aesthetics. Reading this interview, all I learned about Rowenta is that he doesn’t like the music that’s on the radio nor most (then) current avant garde msuic, he composes his own music/sounds in order to “arrange the sounds in (his) head”, and what he considers good live performances (laptops=bad). His opinions on composition, improvisation as well as sampling seem rather conservative and strict considering the nature of his own music as well as his collaborators. It’s almost like reading the interview took all of the fun out of these two records I’ve enjoyed many, many times over the years. All said, the original interview was most likely in his native German and perhaps the slightly imperfect translation to the language I speak has led my mind into a few directions not intended when Rowenta gave these answers. It’s still interesting to think how differently I feel about these records now as (and maybe it’s really in my own head), I don’t think Rowenta would really like to hear what I like about them? There’s a few moments on Grillhaus that would not sound out of place on a “vaporwave” compilation and if Rowenta felt the way most people my age feel about vaporwave, he probably wouldn’t like that comparison. Ultimately, in this case, I feel like I now might have less of a personal connection to the music simply because I now have a vague understanding that there’s an academic intent to it that I might not understand. Why is that a problem? Is that a problem? Probably not, but it does make me wonder if I would have enjoyed these records if I had read that interview first, going into them feeling a pressure to “get it.” Regardless, both records are great listens and I’m going to stick with my initial feelings about them and my own “interpretations” of what they’re trying to communicate.
Grillhaus video HERE: https://archive.org/details/WURSTBUDE
