[Grief] TG Endless Not
Jonny
freenoiseuk at blueyonder.co.uk
Thu Apr 5 16:52:43 PDT 2007
Throbbing Gristle: Part Two - The Endless Not
(Industrial / Mute 2007)
"Shit is shit, no matter how you present it. Most current so called
'electronic musicians' have little or no imagination outside the
protected sphere of their computer screen or bedroom. Where has the
experimentation gone? Everyone sounds like everyone else. ."
- Chris Carter 2006.
http://www.ikonen-magazin.de/interview/TG.htm
The new TG album is at times nicely powerful, unpredictable and
challenging, if pretty and polished. Cosey's trumpet is there thank god,
nestled between some weird modern jazz piano on 'Rabbit Snare' and Gen
asking if are we scared. Sleazy's input takes some the electronics
part-way into genuine spooky-land on 'Lyre Liar'. Twenty five years on
though I fear the group's use of technology has sapped away some of the
renegade spirit we all came to know and love. Perhaps even creative
technology has moved yet further along while this record has been
sitting in Mute's vaults delayed for well over a year. Part Two is a
largely meditative album with a new-age ambience, if you've been
listening to CarterTutti these past years, notably 'Cabal' much of this
album will not suprise you, and it is Carter dominated (he also mastered
it). 2005's limited EP-CD 'TGNOW' has more going for it overall and the
new version of 'Almost a Kiss' here is too mellow with long sustained
keyboard chords and Gen crooning like an opiated Max Bygraves, and when
he shouts audibly weak from his recent ill-health. Even the amusing and
notoriously bad rhyming lyrics are tiresome especially on the title
track with it's laid back trip-hop feel. Among the heavy use of loops
toward the last few tracks I noticed on 'The Worm Waits Its Turn' the
use of a Sony CD keyboard loop which I also used on this
http://www.johnhackett.com/red_planet_rhythm.htm (track 2).
Pretty awful comparing TG to prog rock I know, believe me, I'm feeling
quite gutted having to slag off one of the greats with this modern day
studio incarnation but the new album seems to die toward the end like a
rotting forgotten yuppie on a burnt out tube.
- jd
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