Bubblegum Cage III

Pulido Fennesz Siewert Stangl – A Girl & a Gun (Interstellar) 7″

September 17, 2009 at 9:00 am 1 comment

Pulido Fennesz Siewert Stangl - A Girl & a Gun

What the hell is up with that cover, eh? We’ll deal with this issue in a minute. But first…

In the last couple of years, Christian Fennesz does seem to have become a little less choosy when it comes to collaborations. You have to hand it to him, though – for every collab with an experimental jet-set superstar like Ryuichi Sakamoto or Mike Patton, there’s one that teams Fennesz with some hardcore, grass-roots improvisers based in his native Vienna.

This 7″, released by Austrian label Interstellar, features the great man alongside Martin Siewert and Burkhard Stangl – names that should be familiar to long-term Fennesz fans. The unknown quantity here is Lucia Pulido. Apparently, she’s a fairly well-known Columbian singer and each side of this 7″ is based on a traditional Columbian song.

The recordings were made for an art film titled Film ist. A Girl & a Gun, which – judging by the vaguely grotesque sketches adorning the record’s cover – must be pretty, erm…. racy stuff. The songs, on the other hand, are quite straightforwardly pretty and civilized.

“Canto de Velorio” is full of chiming guitars, subtle electronics and cooing vocals. On “Canto de Zafra”, Pulido becomes rather more strident, with intense – but never less than decorative – results. Both sides are very accessible but richly inventive and original.

This seems like the kind of record that’s going to disappear from print pretty quickly. Hopefully, it’s not already too late for you to buy A Girl & a Gun from Touch.

Entry filed under: electronica, experimental, MP3s, reviews. Tags: electronica, experimental, MP3s, reviews.