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| The Human Side of Techno |
| band: Almost Connected |
| Album: Seven Songs |
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Almost Connected
Seven Songs
The Human Side of Techno
There is a celebrated scene in Close Encounters in the dining room over dinner. Richard Dreyfus piles his potatoes into the topography of Devil's Mountain. Then there follows an astonishing dialogue:
"This means something.
What does it mean?
I don't know yet."
I'm quoting from the version they just repeated as an homage on Stargate SG-1, Season 4, Episode 10, titled "Beneath the Surface" Colonel O'Neil to the beautiful Samantha Carter. Certain instrumental music strikes me like that lump of potatoes. Lines and rhythms pile up in (the poorly named) minimalism, Frankenstein, good jazz suites, Ravel's Bolero, and the subject of this review: Techno Music when it's good. Something in a mind abhors a flat surface stretching out a little longer than a good idea. I love a good tone poem, but even Also Sprach Zarathustra lumbers along slow as molasses but rich with anticipation of an event. Something really gotta happen or I'm tuning out. That string of notes to time has got to tell a little story sometimes to keep my interest, and it had better be a human story or I'll push the kill switch and send that music back to the land without hope of ones and zeroes. That's where I get to the subject. Right here and now I can tell you this Almost Connected group tells a human story in these little constructions they did on their computer. I hear music in those grooves I can feel. It means something. What does it mean? I don't know yet.
Greek plays should come with a spoiler alert. I'll tell you now, if you skip the first 10 minutes of Oedipus the story will be full of surprises. Seat yourself before 8:00 p.m. and a whole chorus of voices will tell you the story right to the end before you get to see it for yourself. The outcome, you see, is inevitable. That's the point. The fates have spoken: Lychesis, Atropos, and the lovely Clotho. What's the point, you say, now that we know the story? Here's the deal. Euripides and Almost Connected tell you a story with the very end of it certain in the beginning and not much doubt about it. Techno drive is an irresistible force you can cipher from the start. Nothing can stop that steamroller, and you wouldn't want it any other way, but that certainty comes at the cost of a twist in the story. This tale has one force so strong it can't be denied, and it's going to win by shear force so all the other players are just characters in support of the powerful hero. Oedipus will dance out his incest and fratricide, but he will do it in style worth watching and it's worthy of note he will save Thebes from the Sphinx with the force of his understanding of the predicament of mankind. Such a man is worth watching even if the story is a rerun, so relax and enjoy the rhythm of the language and the song of such elevated speech the playwright is called a poet. Don't worry! I'm not saying these seven songs are equal in value to the writing of Euripides, I just see the same operation at work as a device for delivering a statement about humanity. Worthy of note, and not the usual thing in this genre. The steamroller of Goth-compatible techno on these Seven Songs by Almost Connected has a beating heart in the scales and ornament of this oracular journey embedded in rhythm incessantly driving the song. I wax waltz time but the signature of these note strings is march with the one brilliant exception revolving in eleven over eight. Yep, I like these guys. They have painted something human on the claustrophobic walls of the Techno Disco. I truly love cave paintings. They mean something. What do they mean? I don't know yet.
So there are these two guys in Greece living in a town called Drama. (No kidding!) They don't have a CD as I sit here today — They don't think they have a band! — but they fooled around on the computer and came up with something wicked cool. There's no management company to tell you they are a "going concern," with a soothing "It's alright to join their fan club. Look at these graphics. This band is supported!" There is none of that. These guys may have friends in that town who say stuff like this:
"You hear what stuff Polik & Pasxalis did on their 'puter?
Almost Connected they call it.
Yeah! That's it! What do you think?
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Don't know. You?
I heard their shit. Told them, "This means something. What does it mean? I don't know yet.
What they say to that?
They liked it! [Laughter]"
So I get these downloads and I write some emails about this music. "Where's the album art?" I write. A discussion follows of artists I know who do stuff like that. Nothing like that happens fast. I fake an album cover for my new Grecian friends with the Sistine Chapel and some power cords. They like it. I have breached the wall of separation and breached the artist/critic barrier. Tough shit. I hate those walls. I hear tell they will use that artwork on their album. More power to the Internet! Hail Steve Jobs! Something significant and not explosive has passed between two nations in a war torn world. Sorry you happen to be a Gravity's Rainbow from Iraq. Shit happens! Fate is a bitch. But here's an album cover. Enjoy!
Geography matters. This music comes from a place uncomfortably near a conflict. I hear it from Grecians all the time. Iraq is a stones throw of that "Gravity's Rainbow" thing. It poisons the atmosphere and makes certain nutty folk more likely to talk about Macedonia and things best left unspoken. Big events loom in life here and there that seem beyond alteration, man made tragic forces of nature events, big deals with body counts: Fate. Techno has that force illustrated in bass and drum like a tidal wave, earthquake and a war. It is a side of the toast we prefer not to see and assume it's too burned to scrape. But, see, music is supposed to give sound to our feelings, fears and little gremlins of our character so the bad can play with the good in public and not just fester and make us monsters. A good song can redeem a bad emotion. Such is the human side of fear when shown in Untitled Connection despite the sound of metal springs used sounds to me like whips in the air all sharp at the end and looking for flesh to lacerate. Creepy really, but it's damn hard to ignore those rhythmic accents. Sounds dangerous. Better listen.
Such forces just don't engender a resolution. There is too much history with such power to maintain that mystery. Yeah sure, there is a genre with Deus Ex Machina waiting in the wings, but that's called comedy and this is Euripides the Serious not Aristophanes the Clown. Even Shakespeare's Measure For Measure cheats fate in a comedy, but we like to laugh at the release of tension and don't demand funny make sense. No funny survives intact in a tragedy, but beauty steps in to fill the void. I majored in theater not music. I don't know nothin' but I feel this one strong enough to publish it. Back to the music, Billy, you are losing the thread.
Nine Inch Nails plow through similar territory with a different spirit. Almost Connected has more warmth and a different creativity, with a few scales and modes more familiar farther east. Trent Rezner is a great guy, but he's a little weak on the touchy feely. I reserve him for when I choose to embrace eternity and the apocalypse of just how pitiful small a human body really is and what little it takes to annihilate a species. AC has more uses than just the one. I can listen to them when I'm out to celebrate choices, or find some depth in a loss, or just want to shut the blinds and dance out the anguish. This music has fun in it, but don't tell the devoted. I dig that this music was created in a little bitty room on a box for the love of music. "Music is too important to be left to professionals," said Michele Shocked. Professional music sucks. I hear that guy on a box making stuff up feeling in David Bowie. That's why I like that famous dude. He's just a guy. This is a review of Almost Connected. They are two dudes from Greece named Polik and Pasxalis. They stumbled around on a keyboard and created something big and powerful and beautiful. I like their music.
"This means something.
What does it mean?
I don't know yet."
ALMOST CONNECTED is:
Polik & Pasxalis
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