Detailed Reviews [Electric Tiger - 2004 - "Tanzmusic"]

Prolusion. ELECTRIC TIGER is a project from Gloucester, MA. They call their music Slambient. "Tanzmusik" is their second album, and the author's description of it sounds as "Slambient dance-oriented pulsation".

Analysis. Any kind of art: is it music, painting or literature, should be subjected to constructive principles, as it's called to form people's worldview, arousing emotions and creating mood. Every man considering himself a creative personality must continuously asking himself three questions: what to do, how to do and for what purpose. This homemade recording does not explain what its creator wanted to bring to the listener and lacks any positivism. This is the domain of striking inexpressiveness, with the nearly complete absence of melody, development and dynamics, the extremely primitive rhythmic picture, all in combination with excessive overextension of the tracks, each exceeding 16 minutes. What dances Jeffrey implied when he did the 'pulsations' also remain unclear. I believe anyone will prefer the most primitive pop music for dancing to this dead pushbutton stuff after hearing it. The last track, Nerventanz, is notable for lots of randomly done sounds. At times, I had a wish to draw any parallels between that cacophony and free jazz, but the result was zero. Even with the absence of most of traditional, academic, components in it, free jazz implies keen, sensitive, highly virtuosi improvisations, complex rhythmic experiments and other features, which make it music. There is nothing like that here. It's not even musical kitsch. One may say this is post-impressionism, somewhat kindred with Malevitch's Black Square etc. Maybe. But I don't recognize pseudo art.

Conclusion. I feel some discomfort being so cruelly critical, but it's beyond my power to say something positive in this review.

VM: April 6, 2005