Music for Theatre and Radio Play

A logical follow-up to Felix Kubin's Filmmusik album released a full decade ago, this compilation of theatrical and radiophonic soundtracks finds one of the most distinctive voices within European electronic music at the peak of his powers. The music compiled here comes from three plays: Branko Simic's Zufall, based on a Vladimir Nabokov short story, Hollywood Elegien, a Brecht/Eisler adaptation by Schorsch Kamerun and The Raft, a radio play written by Xentos Bentos of The Homosexuals. Throughout, Kubin's work artfully obliterates conventional orchestral sources with a Mego-like disregard for soundmatter. The Zufall sequence proves to be the most erratic of the three switching between plundered audio cutups, concrète compositions and manipulated voices. Hollywood Elegien proves to be less fragmented, with substantial pieces like the spooky 'Die Propherin' and 'Hollywood' coming across as wonderful standalone productions in their own right. There are some great sound effect passages constructed here too: 'Zeitmaschine' takes a simple woodwind sting and fires it off into a DSP black hole, while 'Drifting' takes a classical percussion slant to instil a sense of weightlessness. On other occasions the more whimsical end-of-the-pier Kubin of old rears his head, concocting trashy organ ditties like the Jon Shuttleworth-esque instrumental 'Miraculous Rescue' or the industrial Casio funk of 'Dutch Naval Air Defence'. As far as this album's repertoire is concerned, there are too many modes and disciplines to list, and Kubin once again proves himself one of the most interesting, enigmatic figures in electronica.