VARIOUS ARTISTS

The Official Black Market Soundtrack

CD, gebrauchte musik / usound

Political music in the narrowest sense of the word apart from propaganda songs usually has the problem of pushing the message too heavy into the listeners face while deteriorating the musical sides of the songs, which usually produces boring songs. Not this one. Times have changed. Gebrauchtemusik and Usound proof that there is no reason to identify one style of music with one kind of political idea or system. The postmodern era, if nothing else, has managed to throw down all boundaries and borders and to make it possible to find all kinds of pop-music on one CD that all point in one direction: liberation. Of course, “The official black market music” is a compilation of songs collected especially with the intention of finding music and songs that protest against globalisation and the neo-liberalist threat that is ready to throw us all into the fangs of a new (cyber-)industrial moloch, in which eighty percent of people in western civilizations will work as phone-clerks to make the other twenty percent goddamn rich. Yes, the profits go to the ATTAC-network. The truly inspiring factor of this compilation is the wide variety of tracks, styles and artists involved. The many, sometimes even contradictory answers and viewpoints people have found of dealing with this issue. I’ll get to the music again in a minute; there is something more I have to say.

Globalisation in itself is neither good nor bad, it is a fact. The alternative scene has profited a lot of the internet, the connections to likeminded organisations and people all around the world. I fondly remember the scene-reports from Malaysia, Uzbekistan or Peru in the old punkfanzines and the kind of emancipation and enlightenment in can bring to all kinds of places and people. The main problem is that with globalisation those enormous international companies find more and more ways to get by national regulations and laws (it would be naïve to wish they wouldn’t do so, because it is their duty to do so, their system and organisation demands it – that’s nothing personal), thereby undermining the rights and safety of human lives. Oil companies started the war in Iraq, pharma companies send old medicine to Africa, people work three shitty McJobs to get by, all that and more is common to us. We have learned to live with it and not care anymore. The next step is the complete liberation of all services the state has delivered for its people. In the USA prisons are private companies, private securities patrol shopping areas, the market for electricity and gas has been opened, and so on, the idea is nothing new. But now they are getting to the most important stuff: water. (A few months ago, I started drinking water instead of softdrinks and I feel a lot better. There is actually no reason for that, because those softdrinks are mainly water anyway plus sugar and a little coloring.) Will we start the fight for water? We should have started a long time ago, actually. I don’t think the music on this beautiful CD (comes in a DVD-packaging) will make anyone start a revolution, but everyone who buys it definitely makes a statement about how he thinks about certain things. May the music make him or her remember this.

Back to music. The first half has a lot of 4-to the floor-beats and straightforward techno-music. Eurocide’s “Patriotic” act will make every fan of DAF happy. Other times the harsh beats change into postmodern electronic punkrock (Age.cee – “Die fade Wand”) or into weirdo-disco-pop with an aggro-touch like Sputnik Booster’s “move the masses with C64”. The title of the last song says it all, actually, and it also shows you that, if you are afraid of a high quantity of nerdism, maybe you are on the wrong side of the line. Some take an ironic viewpoint, like Superschiff and “Poppolitik 2004” who rearrange the advertising slogan of the most low-brow tabloid in Germany, the Bild, and rework it for the most (pseudo-)intellectual magazine about music and culture in Germany, the Spex. Others remain more obvious and keep on shouting “I love this company” for some time while the beats pound on and on and on. Next to the disco-music for alternative dancefloors there is also some lo-fi-homerecording stuff, e.g. the "Globalisierungslied" by Christoph & Lollo, who are always great and funny. As well as some great guitar-driven music, e.g. the opener by the Logan Bros called “White Minority”. Another honorable mention goes to my friends of Deep, who mix one of their most intimate yet striking drones to date. “Continuous commercial break (sub-mix)” contains some eerie vocal-samples and floating bass-strings to add a layer of sound in any room. Moreover, Deep’s Bernd Spring is responsible for the cover of this CD. Good work, again. And Ike and Heike Delique’s “Africa Ska” is not very much like ska but the again it is. Yeah, all in all the rooster is pretty diverse. Some tracks are funny but lack musicality, others are very complex and elaborated musically, but miss out on the fun-factor. Others find their own simple answer, like Klangwahn, who ends his otherwise purely instrumental track with a shouted “fuck you”. Even J.B. gets to use some bongos. But all of them have a special reason and right to be on that compilation, so two thumbs up the fine people of gebrauchtemusik and usound for the great work.