SOFA SURFERS
encounters
CD/2LP, klein
“River
Blues”, track number 3 from “encounters”, was featured on a
compilation-CD that came along with some magazine. It took me no more than
three seconds to identify the voice on it: Jeb Loy Nichols – singer of the
great, late (?) Fellow Travellers, the first band to combine dub and country
in the most beautiful manner. What a strange selection as a vocalist on an
otherwise straight electronic / tribe-vibe record. Anyway, Jeb Loy Nichols
and the uncontrollable urge to have an electronica-record to spend the
nights with, made me buy this record. I wasn’t disappointed, not in the
least. Seems as if there is a heart for perfectly mastered
electronica-tracks in everyone living in Vienna. Maybe it is in the water,
but as far as this kind of music is concerned, this city grooves more than
most other cities. I’d even go as far as to say that German-tongue hip-hop
started in Vienna! Remember Johannes Hölzl aka Falco and “Der
Kommissar”. That track made KRS One and Afrika Bambaataa hot in their
pants. The Sofa Surfers are just another step in the history, but a big one.
One that made “record of the month” in “alternative”-music-magazine
Visions, leaving behind the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (!),
Notwist (!), Fu
Manchu (!) and Ryan Adams (!). Unbelievable. As far as I remember, this is
the first electronica record to make that place. Wowee, I am getting proud
of my city here…
The
idea behind “encounters” is quite clear: The Sofa Surfers produce tracks
and give them to various rappers, MCs, toasters, singers and vocalists, who
do something with them and send them back and then the Sofa Surfers go over
them one more time. All that took them more than two years, but the wait was
well worth it. There is Sensational (from the Jungle Brothers) as well as
Junior Delgado and Dalek and even Mark Stewart. With them the record
develops an enormous bandwidth of flavours and colours, though mostly in the
darker and more sombre regions. Actually, the whole album sounds very dark,
flowing like a river in a starless night. That is what makes the tracks so
good to listen in the late hours, when you are getting tired and know, that
it is time to sleep, but some unfathomable hint of a feeling keeps you
awake, fighting sleep and waiting for god knows what. Maybe Him personally.
If you really want Him to come, take off your headphones. There was a time,
when I used to let the TV play without sound, turned on the stereo to full
volume and played videogames until the wee wee hours. That is long gone. I
am old now and I just fall asleep when it gets late. Such are the pleasures
of old age. (I am joking.)
