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Sciajno/Prins, "The D&B Album"

Alhough it does little to follow through on its genre-addressing title, cheeky or otherwise, The D&B Album still emerges as one of Bowindo's more accessible releases to date. From the playful motorik pulsings of the opening "Cascocity" it's clear that the musicians choose not the weighted expressionism or colorful electroacoustics that characterized the label's previous output and will opt instead for "electro" alone, forging a new brand of body music for new kinds of bodies.Bowindo

Domenico Sciajno and Gert-Jan Prins (or "Do shine O." and "Prinsjan" as their adopted b-boy names read) improvise with small electronics, computer, and radio manipulations pulling together arrhythmic roller coasters of clipped, squelching highs and dizzy, rumbling lows, not dance music by any means, but a lot of fun regardless. The one reference point I can imagine would be Nerve Net Noise's music, for as synthetic and aloof as The D&B Album sounds, it can never be called faceless, always bursting with enough cartoon-ish energy to push for the next nauseating, limb-shaking, speaker-busting plateau. The scattered references to "acceptable" electronic musicianship, a few straight-ahead breaks, down-beat bass patterns, and antique modal synth lines, exist submerged within a surface scurry of digital scraps that never feels too indulgent for justification in the disc's humorous undertone or simple, rump-shaking oddity. For their part, Prins' static-coated radio captures help to emphasize the music's reclamation of the friendly or commonplace within otherwise alienating circumstances. And if one thing must be taken away from The D&B Album it might be this idea, that through their chiding title, invented alter-egos, and schizophrenic presentation, the artists compile a subtle statement about the tendency towards depersonalization in current majority of experimental or improvised electronic music. It is more tempting, however, to forget the commentary altogether and just nod along with this wackiness, probably the more progressive attitude anyway. 

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