Kapital Band

Kapital Band 1
Mosz 001

Over the last few years, the young generations of Austrian (specifically Viennese) and German improvisers interested in post-AMM electronics have been getting some attention. Erstwhile Records has certainly brought a lot of players like Burkhard Stangl steady exposure, but so too has the decision of “indie” labels like Thrill Jockey to sponsor new recordings by both Radian and Trapist, two exciting trios emerging from this heady musical environment. And while there has been some recent debate on this board as to the merits of Trapist’s latest release – specifically concerning whether or not they have become too “smooth,” too “accessible,” even too “pop” – there’s little denying that bands like this have struck a particularly resonant chord with a lot of listeners.

The common denominator may be drummer Martin Brandlmayr, who brings a trunk of funk to both units. Along with Berlin-based electronics whiz Nicholas Bussman (of Beige Oscillator and Ich Schwitze Nie), Brandlmayr makes up Kapital Band, and his wickedly tight drumming drives these eleven slices of what the duo unapologetically (but not without complicated feelings) call “pop music.” While there are no hooks, no catchy melodies, no ringing choruses or anything of the sort we typically associate with pop, Kapital Band music is saturated with the groove, knee-deep in directness, and stripped down for maximum effect.

What distinguishes it is the fact that it incorporates improvisation and that it’s steeped in a new electroacoustic aesthetic. The music captures your attention from the start, but it nonetheless – for all that it is compelling and direct – eludes reduction in meaning, via its ever shifting nuance and texture. Don’t think necessarily of the swirling, tonal clouds of Fennesz; think, rather, of the glitch-pop of Oval mixed with the crisp precision of Kraftwerk and the general sensibilities of seasoned AMM listeners. Keyboard sounds ping and pong back and forth between speakers; crackling feedback flames lick at Brandlmayr’s shuffle and pop; subtle, near-references to genre (including the occasional sample of a “hot” guitar lick) flicker at the music’s edges. The pieces often develop courtesy of Brandlmayr’s subtle fluctuations of the pulse in concert with Bussman’s minute orchestrations (from processing noises in the air, generating drones, providing click tracks or quasi-basslines of his own, or conjuring rushes of sonic wind). Each track ebbs and flows, cycles through assemblage and deconstruction. The process might sound familiar, but the materials used are uncommon for this idiom: the stripped and weather-beaten bones of genre, shorn of their context and reframed. Whether in slight whispers of a tune or in pieces that bubble over with noise and energy, Kapital Band’s music should be heard. It’s one of the few recordings I’ve heard recently that can stimulate your brain and move your ass.

~Jason Bivins