5 September 2012
Blog | Das Zeitgeist Zimmer
Das Zeitgeist Zimmer, 03.09.12-09.09.12
New music with Johann Gottfried Herder and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Name: Vex Ruffin
Based: US
Listen: ‘Take It’
Need to Know: Punk rock minimalist signed to Stones Throw
Hegel: You know that old punk adage, ‘Here’s three chords, now go start a band? Well that is some decadent, hippy-ass bullshit, because really, why would you ever need more than two chords? In fact, why are you even bothering to form chords in the first place, you acid-soused space cadet?! You should be playing single notes and nothing more. Anything more than that and you as might as well be playing a 16-minute flute solo in a Phish tribute band.
Vex Ruffin, on the other hand, gets it. ‘Take It’ is two repetitive notes, and some drums, and that is it. Top stuff, but if I ever find him playing a third chord I’m probably going to have to bottle him. I kid, I kid, I’m actually tripping balls right now while listening to some Grateful Dead bootlegs, and as JT would say, “I’m loving it”.
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unhappybirthday – Pyramiden from Crash Symbols on Vimeo.
Name: Unhappybirthday
Based: Wismar
Listen: ‘Pyramiden’
Need to Know: Glum German coldwavers
Hegel: Unhappybirthday are a bunch of glum Germans hailing from the tiny Baltic port of Wismar, which, last time I checked, had a population of less than 50,000. So, really, what else is there to do there besides start angry, yet hook-laden, coldwave bands? It’s the only sane response to the cruel vagaries of the Baltic Sea, I tell you! In any case, this lot show a great deal of promise, and their debut album Sirup has just been released on Crash Symbols.
They’re not all misery, however, as their music is rather catchy. It’s more very early New Order than Throbbing Gristle, and there are some lovely Bernard Sumner-esque riffs on display, which, for the record, are always appreciated when done right. We heareat Das Zeitgest Zimmer love us some Bernard Sumner, perhaps a little too much — he does hold a restraining order against us — but that’s neither here nor there.
You can watch the appropriately monochrome video to the top notch ‘Pyramiden’ up above.
