Holger Czukay "La Luna" Tone Casualties tccd 9945 2000 (47:17)
(47:17) (25:20 - 26:20)
Holger Czukay is a founding member of the legendary 'krautrock' band Can. The 60+ year old Czukay has been busy as of late with a 2 disc live collaboration with Dr. Walker of Air Liquide and 2 solo studio albums, all for the U.S. based Tone Casualties label. "La Luna" (The Moon, subtitled 'an electronic night ceremony') is a single 47 minute piece recorded live in the studio in 1996. Czukay uses his extensive cut-up skills to lay down a murky, Ovel-esque loop foundation to which he adds a metronome like beat and sporadic fills, sonic textures, voices and the like. 18 minutes later most everything drops out then it slowly rebuilds with glass bottle like percussion and waves of ambient sound. We're back on track by the 23rd minute. By the 30th minute it all drops off again and the vocals / spoken words of U-She debut with lines such as "la luna ... goddess of the moon". The 38th to 42nd minutes are the most active with percussion and noise stuff and the final few minutes bring it all to a close with a beat absent cloud. That's a long 47 minutes. I'm thoroughly unimpressed and utterly disappointed, especially considering Czukay's background. Most of the sounds are generic and dull and while the piece as a whole does change over time, it fails to progress or develop much and remains lifeless. The lunar themes seem silly here unlike, say, those of recent Coil records. "La Luna" simply doesn't have the magic. And Tone Casualties - please, I'm begging you - hire someone with a sense of design to handle the artwork for future inserts ...
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via CD World.