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REHBERG & BAUER, "PASST"
Peter Rehberg may be familiar as Pita and Ramon Bauer as General Magic,both of whom are usually at home on the Mego label. However, they'vebeen documenting noisy rhythms emanating from errors over the course ofa trilogy of CD's on Touch. Never ones to stick closely to a rulebook(except perhaps 'How to Rewire Your Fridge') the third CD is actuallyculled from Australian live performances by the Austrian duo. Once pastthe irritating over the top intro from a swearing local 'celebrity'it's over the top laptop noise all the way. Really this has as much incommon with Rehberg's Pita material as it does the earlier 'ballt' and'Fasst' installments. Maybe that's because the glitch is seen by thecogniscenti to have become a bit of a cliche in the five years since'Fasst' emerged twitching and humming into the twilight. The CD isindexed into 13 tracks over the course of four titles, so on randomplay cuts three of the noisescapes into 2 to 7 chunks which actuallywork off each other very well in any order. I suspect that Rehberg andBauer would actively encourage even greater listener interaction. Trydownloading the samples below and hacking, chopping and mulching themto your own requirements. I had a lot of fun doing just that withsamples from the last General Magic CD. Which is not to suggest that'passt' isn't a fine listen in itself. Its crackles and pops andmeasured descents into howling digital whirlwinds are fine exercises inreigning in and controlling chaos. From heartbeat pulses to emergencywhite noise whiteouts, Rehberg and Bauer keep things moving at a fingerclicking pace. Halfway through the longest closing excursion intomounting dissonance, 'Revolver', the influence of Bruce Gilbert'slatter day solo work is readily apparent, and recommendations don'tcome much higher than that. Like 'In Esse' or the Speedranch^JanskyNoise 'Live at the Scala' disc, these are noise works with so manylayers and masked shifts that repeated listening is essential to makeheads into tails. Piccadilly Records were impressed enough to remarkthat the album has a nice cover and These Records have described'passt' as the first comedy laptop record. So where does that leaveV/Vm and their horrible covers?
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