Das Theater Der Wiederholungen

The Theater of Repetitions. Contemporary vocal ensemble with orchestra. Collage-sounding, mostly eerie, and at times downright insane. Bizarre lyrics. The way the words are sung is *genius*. Very dense, rich music. Instruments sound primal, jazzy, 20th c. classical, occasionally proggy. The text is based on writings by William Burroughs, de Sade, Huysmans, and from the Nuremberg trials. Title is a reference to postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze. This disc made Wire’s best of 2006.

Disc 1:
1-7 in French, dark.
*1. Acapella, cool. Laughing starts. Lots of rhythmic vocals.
2. Full orchestra, hammering, male vox. Least fav track.
*3. Starts close to Stockhausen’s Stimmung, industrial-sounding.
*4. Starts droney, quiet. Dark/covered-sounding vox join, serial killer violin. Unique, nice dynamic swells. Nice organ in the middle.
5. Church of satan? Female vox + electronics, dark, some prog.
*6. Fiery violin + orchestra, psychotic, hiccup male vox.
*7. Catchy female choir starts, beauuuuutiul, acapella.

8-11 (and 1-3 on Disc 2): based on Burroughs. Bizarre lyrics, lots of prog sounds.
8. “The only thing that could unite the planet is a united space program...” Spoken vox, prog/classical/jazz.
*9. Theatrical, clearly Burroughs, funny, proggy, silly, nuts, over-the-top.
10. Fucking funny – way out music. Maybe not FCC ok – penis, genitals, fuck – only the very end is for sure an audible “fuck”.
**11. Instrumental grinding classical/prog/jazz. No-wave classical???? Cool.


Disc 2
1-3: Burroughs text.
**1. The way the (bizarre) words are sung... holy crap, just beautiful. I really think you can get away with the repeated “smooth cock.” I really do. Best lyrics, this track. Other fav parts – “phosphorescent excrement” and “mollusk”.
2. Prog keys/guitars/bass/vibes, covered alto tone, creepy electronics?
3. More prog, sprechgesang, groovy, wow.

4-10: Mostly dark, full, creepy 20th century classical-sounding, almost free-jazz. Texts based on the Nuremberg trials and reports from concentration camps.
*4. Grating, lots of different vocal techniques.
*5. Grating, creepy but beautiful. Cool bassoon with poetic German baritone. Holy crap – this one’s a ride.
6. Slower. Sliding drony string start, microtonal choir joins. Ligeti comes to mind. Loud ending.
7. Slow start, dissonant, fairly quiet, tense, pretty singing.
*8. Beautiful violin work, skittery, over drone rhythm in strings and vox. Big ending.
9. A dark, city-sounding march; middle sounds like free jazz. Fucking creepy words, in German, from the Nuremberg trials.
10. Dense and creaky/broken-sounding, choir and full orchestra. Repetition sounds a little John Adams. Gas chamber sound ends the work.