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GRY/FM EINHEIT, "PUBLIC RECORDING"

Danish vocalist GryBagøien and former Einstürzende Neubauten member FM Einheit co-wrotethe bulk of these dozen songs and recorded them along with anassortment of guests this past February at Marstall Media Lab in Munich.
  The duo and friends were part of the Invisible Records "Lowestof the Low" North American tour in 1998. The live set I saw seemed tobe heavily improvised and experimental jams but this cd is a variety of3-5 minute electro-organic pop songs. Gry's vocals (most in English)remind me a great deal of Canadian alterna-pop songstress Esthero, onlywith a Danish flavor. Einheit handles programming, piano and synths,'beat' and various effects. A full band line-up is assembled for eachtrack from the impressive guest list: Alexander Hacke (also ofNeubauten) and his wife Meret Becker, Pan Sonic, Funkstörung, Zaki 'thehuman beatbox' Hyrland, Chrislo Haas (DAF), DJ Fetisch of Terranova andseveral others. The music is somewhat surprising as it's pretty mellow,unobtrusive and radio friendly ... pleasant enough but at least half ofthe songs don't leave much of a lasting impression. Four in particulardo. "Rocket" features bombastic horn and percussion arrangements and avery amusing Cab Calloway styled call and response chorus. "PrincessCrocodile" is irresistibly fun with a ragtime sample loop accentuatedwith drum 'n bass fills. Lee Hazlewood's "Summer Wine" (as popularizedby Nancy Sinatra) is covered well with Gry and Alexander Hacke tradingoff vocals. "Ghost" is slow and sexy, much like Portishead, withbrushed snare, singing saw, cello, beat box and nasally vocals. "PublicRecording" suffers from a mismatch of creative and interesting tracksversus bland and forgetful ones. It's just too tempting to skip around...

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