NITRADA

We don’t know why but we do it

CD/LP, 2.nd.rec

Another record in the pop-meets-electronica-in-a-gentle-sort-of-way-category? No, one of the best in that category and stretching to a hundred different directions beneath that one. Nitrada produces a gentle but chilling atmosphere of a soft electronic environment, with clicks and beats, random glitches and lava lamps, without losing the excitement of the band experience, and if it is only a lonely surf guitar or rolling drums or a string section. Like a remix of Twin Peaks at times or like an apocalyptic remake of a black and white Philip Marlowe-movie. It is melancholia in its most modern and yet primary form, whether combined with harsh breakbeats or candle-lights or indie-pop-guitars, if you want to feel the happiness of being sad, then look no further than this record.

That is a great title for a record: “we don’t know why but we do it”. For everyone obsessed with music and driven by an unnameable urge to either producing or consuming music or both, these eight word express exactly the dilemma they find themselves in. Usually without being able to name the real worth or profit to be gained by producing, commenting on or consuming music, it is nevertheless completely clear that the habit will continue for at least a long time to come. A lot of people compare their need to search for new revelations in music as an addiction themselves, complete with overgrowing collections of records, proportionally growing dissatisfaction and cynicism towards “new” music and the complete disability to describe the fact to other people, who don’t feel the same fanaticism. Rarely ever does the plain and simple urge lead to a good or at least worthwhile career. “You better lay that guitar away / there ain’t no money in it / it’ll lead you to an early grave” as Clayton Delaney said in that legendary song by Tom T. Hall. Still, music is being produced, consumed and talked about almost everywhere and at anytime. “What is so interesting about music?” ask the by standing girlfriends, while to boys share their latest findings in the alternative record-store. A female DJ has to bully her place between the guys and really shows them how to use the decks properly. Lovers record tapes or CDs with their favourite songs for each other. Books have been written; hundreds and hundreds of pages filled with witty, philosophical and cryptic remarks on the beauty or aesthetics of music, without ever getting close to its true magic. To those, who initiated themselves into the circle of music maniacs, the magic will stay as an enigmatic light at the end of the tunnel, slowly getting dimmer but even the slightest recollection of its shine will help them to keep on their path. We don’t know why, but we do it.

Christophe Stoll aka Nitrada is definitely one of us / them. In almost filigrane and very exhausting work he has produced a collection of beautiful songs or tracks, that once again mark the beauty of pop-music being mixed with electronic music or vice versa, who cares. Apparently, he recorded the basic tracks of the songs in the cellar of his house, then sent them off to various collaborators and co-producers around the world, and then remixed the results to a final song. The dark and lonely atmosphere, as also perfectly encoded in the cover-photograph – a deserted midnight skiing-area – sifts through the whole record. The same darkness and loneliness combined with a feeling for beautiful melodies and harmonies from the side streets of the glittering pop-world, that the best tracks by The Notwist also carry. Whenever pop and electronic is combined in a soft and emotional fashion, The Notwist will have to stand up as comparisons, but Nitrada goes a lot of different ways. From the depressing and slow cello-drones of the opening track “The Only Solution”, which in its suicidal and final emotionality made me think of These Immortal Souls or other heroin-addicted mid-eighties bands expatriated from Australia, except that back then they were never so sophisticated about their production and rather liked to hit you on the head with bare-boned-emotions, to the noisy breakbeats mixed with big strings and almost classical themes, like a movie-score and a percussive track by Aphex Twin put over one another, of “Old Love, New Idea”, there is a lot more diversification and creativity than in the last records by the trio from Weilheim. Even in the softest and most silent moments, there is a definite warmth and beauty in the tracks. That is true for the cool, almost swinging “I fear: good” as for the modern torch-song “Like a souvenir”, which is broken by echoy percussions, but held together by an encompassing female singing voice. At times it is definitely the parts provided by artists from outside the production-cellar of Nitrada which add the last spark to make this such a great record.

The record closes with a song so beautiful and sad, it’ll drive you to tears if you don’t hold back. “Start Today” has that uplifting quality any really good slow and sad song should have; to wallow in sadness and tragedy is to also accept live and its energy as one and the same. This song has almost no electronics in it anymore, at least in comparison to the other tracks, and therefore it stands out even more remarkably as a prime example of the survival of big indie-pop-production, complete with grand arrangements and hushed vocals, long-drawn harmonies and tear-jerking strings, within electronic music. The sound and production of the track also closes a circle to the almost classical beginnings of the record, and because every good pop-record should have a beginning and an end, to give the listener a sense of orientation. “We don’t know why but we do it” is one more occasion to strengthen me in my never-ending quest for the core of music and also a record I can put on to describe to people, who don’t care about music, why I do care so much.

www.2ndrec.com

01/2004