FETISH 69

Dysfunctions and Drones

2CD, Trost Records

If Trent Reznor can do it, why on earth Fetish 69 shouldn’t? These two CD’s worth of dark and creepy remixes from the deepest vaults of the electronic underground, which includes Fetish 69 as well as their remixers, give you more 21st century-angst and urban paranoia than you might be able to stand. Because in here the regular everyday-craziness of your life mixes with the bloody nightmares of long after midnight-movies and the dark realms of your own psyche.

No, there is really no connection to Nine Inch Nails other than Reznor has made it a usus to release a remix-record accompanying everyone of his regular albums and both bands play with the notions of the dark side of life. But the emotions and stories told on “Geek”, the last regular album of Fetish 69, are far truer and more realistic than any of Reznor’s silverscreen-plastic-fantasies. Here we talk about the lunatic who sits down besides us on the busride home late at night. We hear the horror-chronicles related in the tabloids and realise it all happened just a few blocks down the street where we live. In short, nobody really is like Trent Reznor or Marilyn Manson, not even they themselves are, but you yourself could very easily end up the “geek”. And that is why the so-called comeback-album of Fetish 69 was so relevant.

Made that clear, the names of the remixers come as no surprise. Mick Harris, James Plotkin, Spectre and Tribes of Neurot lead the international brigade. From the centre of electronic music, Vienna, and accidentally also the home of Fetish 69, comes another third of the remixers: Pita, Suk&Koch, Toxic Lounge, Dr. Nachtström and Fritz Ostermayer. The last one does not really belong to the slew of the young and successful electronic musicians from Vienna, but his fascination and knowledge of the aforementioned “dark sides of life” are quite legendary. (e.g. he is the author of a book about suicidal masturbation-practices and has enjoyed readings in crematories). Finally, Fetish 69 presents a few remixes by themselves. Again, if Trent…

The album itself is divided into on CD with Dysfunctions and one titled Drones, though the seperation is in no way straight. Since there are only slow and very heavy beats to be found on this record, I guess it depends on your own classification, how you want to store these tracks. In anyway there is more than a little psyched-out dub to be found here. But that is actually no more than rather dreary and quite academic formalism. To me, it is more important to point out theoutstanding tracks of this compilation. No easy task, to begin with, because electronic music usually tends to blend in with your surroundings and your overall emotions (or was that the other way round?) and track after track starts to melt into each other, so I will only point out two. But Spectre’s adds a little Thirlwellian genius and a portion of schizophrenic noise to his mix, which hooks in your hearing like a egyptian bedbug. Fritz Ostermayer, to praise him again, puts bits and pieces to Fetish that only link in his mind, but that track is a virus and maybe more of a (re-)mix than the others. Or think of Eraserhead. I have no idea how that fits, but at some moments in time, it is usually a good idea to think about that cineastic masterpiece.

It should be remarked sperately that those tracks, which Fetish 69 themselves remixed, are also remarkably insistend and vivid. Which, after their great album “Geek” comes as no surprise but as another marker for the great potential and creativity that still lies hidden within those musicians. So these tracks might be a sign for whats to come in the future and that could be more diverse, more abstract and less straightforward but still emotionally thriving and demanding music, that should be listened to with the lights down and the curtains drawn.

03/2001