(etre) – a post fordist parade in the strike of events

(CD, Baskaru)

It starts with a dizziing, hectic rhythm-loop of a noise snippett and you know right away: laptop glitch. But within 30 seconds it is also clear that (etre) aka Salvatore Borelli is working towards something quite different than let’s say the regular school of Planet Mu or Cock Rock Disco spectacularism and high level posing. Even if (etre)’s email adress is located at freeglitch.com. Right with the second track he is moving into almost classical industrial territory with sharp distorted beats and heavy machinery sounds in the back. During the course of this widely straying album he will be off to almost post-rock tones and arrangements, use heavy cutting and frantic splicing of for instance vocal samples, stray into the area of white noise drones, remind of more structural sound oriented artists, then be back on track for exploring a structure or dynamic development again, and generally do a lot of things that are unexpected, far out and wide reaching. Like using acoustic guitars and melodies in a paw tracks manner, and a trillion of other small items. Connotations abound and the long titles of the tracks, each of the eleven (plus one bonus) with a dedication to a writer, philosopher, artist or figure, like Faust, Houellebecq, Moresco, and so on, add to the impression of a finely spun and wide reaching web of links, linked meaning and connecting dots of significance. This is the old idea of a roboter switching through television taken an important step further: nowadays the roboter is not only switching, but also memorizing, comparing and – most important of all – commenting and critizising.

I like “a post-fordist parade in the strike of events” best, when the music works itself into a speeding frenzy, with some parts of the multiple layers racing ahead, some stumbling on and some joining or being left out. And there is a lot of that. If it were just for Borelli wading through his massive collections of samples, field recordings, instrumental recordings and ways to work them into something new, then this would be something interesting as well, but it is hard to say. But these frentic moments remind me of the point in time when a complex system starts to break lose. Usually, these moments are accompanied by a lot of sideways noise and sudden appearance of important new structures that take up attention – attention needed to focus on the breaking old structures, but it is already to late then. For instance, if the company you work for suddenly start to focus all its energy on something that is eather beaurocratic or completely meaningless, it is usually a good point to bail ship. Anyway, these moments seem like a pretty good description of our society and its current state to me.