| CD REVIEW Kant Kino |
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Band : Kant Kino Taking their name from a Simple Minds song (and a Berlin theatre), Oslo based Norwegian duo Kant Kino (consisting of members from Industrial Heads, Skin Disease, and The Film Inside) got started as an occasional act in late 2008 to fill in a gap at the Elektrostat 2008 festival (one of the most important underground festivals in the EBM/ Elektro/ Dance genre, which has been goin' on for a decade now). The musicans involved felt a nice tie-in with each other, finding inspiration in Old-Skool EBM with celebrated bands such as Front Line Assembly, Leaether Strip, Skinny Puppy, Borghesia, and à:Grumh as the most important elements. At the same time the guys also injact the distorted power of the '90s Dark Elektro genre, as well as the club appeal of the 21st century Techno Body Music movement into their strong '80s EBM roots to render Dark Body Music with distorted vocals and a strong sense for melody. Expect hard-hitting beats, an orgy of sample manipulations, aggressive vocals and lush melodic sounds. A fresh combination of modern electronics with classic EBM, and the matchless Norwegian seal of quality. That was taken almost word-for-word from a bio posted both in a blog at the band's MySpace page as well as on the label's page on the band. I mean, with words so perfectly describing the great music I hear, why should I wreck my brain cells, when I can let them enjoy the music of this band some more, undisturbed? Ach, that's not how things work, right? Because I need to point out that there's some diversity to the duo's approach of their songs as well. You see, while a majority of the songs indeed comply to the description as above (add the mention of an Industrial touch...but do I réally need to do that, with the influential bands cited?), there's also places where a wacky albeit Ambient undercurrent is slipped into the couple of calmer tracks as well. Actually, there's a nice variety running through the tracks, with the duo occasionally preferring to advance one of the genre's of their music's build-up. No wonder the duo soon found themselves asked for recorded material as donations to a couple of compilation albums. No wonder also, that Belgian quality label Alfa Matrix eventually signed a deal with the guys to make a full-length album's worth of material...which I now have on my plate here! And the thing is, I wish I had more to tell you, because it allows me to continue writing while listening to the album (and once the review done, I'll have to turn over to the next review, see?), but truth is I've ran out of things to mention. Except that you can find 30-second samples of no less than 5 songs off the album, plus two full-lengths of early versions of other tracks (which were featured on a 2009 Alfa Matrix compilation). Enough to make your introduction to this band. Now if you're feeling like buying the band's album, know that it comes in 2 versions. The "regular" version featuring 12 tracks and a "Kant Kino Vs amGod" remix of the track "Fight" (I'm not sure whom remixes whom here!)...and a deluxe 2-CD box edition including a bonus CD with remixes of Kant Kino songs by some of the "most likely suspects" such as Leaether Strip, Implant, Ionic Vision, amGod, Freakangel, and Trakktor...and further remix contributions by some of Norway's finest Elektro acts (Agregat, Anstalt, Essence Of Mind, Industrial Head, Substrate, Bariuz, and DJ ElecThis) and as a 14th track, KK brings their own version of Nitzer Ebb's "Control I'm Here". Sounds delish! Okay, I'm off to make my midnight snack...giving me extra time to listen to this album some more (with an attitude like that, do you even wonder me rating this CD to the max?). 98/100 Tony. |
