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Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Bar, "Asylum Lunaticum"
Culled from a slew of self-released lathe cut LPs and CD-Rs, the first pressing of this disc far outnumbers the sum total of the original material here, the largest of which was an acetate LP of 27 copies. To call this compilation bizarre does a disservice to the word, but the personal world documented on cassette from this husband and wife duo fit in perfectly with the absurdist likes of Sudden Infant or the Schimpfluch-Commune community and deserves a wider outlet than just the personal, handmade releases.
The disc is split between four tracks by the Kommissar, and three from Mama Bar. Their work follows a similar strange road, so they never sound completely independent from each other, but both have their own styles and approaches. The core concept on most of these tracks are simply using the mundane things everyone experiences as source material for deranged sonics. The opening "HJCVGrimmelshausen" is pure spoken word, though the unnatural breathing strategies and cut-up approach are anything but a narrative in the traditional sense.
"Meine erste Zeitmachine" is similar, though here it is a narrative piece of fiction by Hjuler describing how the world we know today is the result of him traveling through time, all of which is recorded in the basement of an old police building, which oozes with its own environmental sounds and cues. "de nye Rigspolitichenfen" is another cut-up, this time with the Kommissar reading an article discussing Danish policing reforms. Conceptually the most "out there" Dadaist piece is "Lauf in Eine Herde," which is a field recording of running into a herd of cows while wearing a red shirt. The cows were frightened and ran off, leaving only breathing and sparse nature sounds. It is a field recording that, like the actual act, nothing happens in, which is what makes it so great.
Mama Bar’s pieces also hinge heavily on the use of her voice, though in a less abrupt and jarring manner. "Lichtblicke" is all tape-stretched voices, what sounds to be a looped car alarm in the distance, and the occasional bit of singing (which could be coming from a nearby shower). The long "Ehrfurcht" glides on layered female voices, some gentle and singing, others more absurd and silly. The singing continues throughout, eventually contrasting the rattling and clattering sounds so often heard on various electro-acoustic works, becoming more complex and varied as the track continues its 25 minute duration. The source of this material? A tape recording of Mama Bar taking the duo’s son for a bike ride, along with a tape recorder for good measure.
The most fascinating part of this compilation is definitely the way it was constructed. There are many complex tape collages and MFA theses out there based on the lengthy study of Pierre Henry or Iannis Xenakis that come out sounding like the suburban banalities that are documented here. But rather than a 30 page score or long winded manifesto of the symbolic meaning behind the music, here it is simply a duo who is having fun with tapes. It’s intensely cliché to say, but it does demonstrate the limitless potential for sound that is around one’s life at any given time, and the reasons why it should not be ignored.
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