undRess Béton, tarentaliogy defloration

Here’s where myspace finds itself useful. You have no doubt looked at a band’s myspace page and wondered why other bands must be obnoxious when posting comments on their favorite’s pages, as though the comment feature was solely to be used as advertising for the smaller bands. More often than not, the lesser-known band is lesser-known for a reason, that reason being they stink like a moldy compost heap. But, as I was looking at the myspace page for personal favorite Einstürzende Neubauten, I couldn’t help but notice this one comment from a person or band that used a modified image of Andre Breton as its default userpic. That got my attention immediately.

My brief research (and I do mean brief) finds this to be the surrealist sound project of one Jaan Patterson. I know little else about undRess Béton (had to turn to blogger to find Jaan’s gender), but I get the feeling that this was mostly composed on a computer, using soundbites, samples, and assorted effects on a music program. Usually, that drives me up a wall, but at points, undRess Béton hits the nail on its misshapen head, thus I am forgiving. Occasionally. Babelfish tells me that “béton” is French for “concrete.”

Undress concrete… I like it.

The whole of tarentaliogy defloration is made up of sound collage, or audio salad; for example, “steve’s handsome bite” features speed metal guitar, bells, a piano sample that repeats ad nauseam, and eventually just throws them all together into a nonsensical cacophony. I don’t know if the artist’s lack of musical coherence is intentional, but unfortunately noise music is a niche market, so I wish undRess Béton best of luck.

undRess Béton calls to mind industrial acts like SPK and Throbbing Gristle; experimental, wild, and disturbing on a certain level. We must consider also that the early industrial musicians were indeed inspired by the Surrealists and Dadaists, so this artist isn’t really doing anything that hasn’t already been done.

The trouble with reviewing such music is that, since the artists do so much to defy categorization, it’s difficult to describe. Some would probably refer to this as nonsensical dross coming from someone suffering the worst degree of attention deficit disorder, while others will hail it as pure genius descended from Heaven. I have difficulty making out much of the words, but even when I do hear them, I hear what we would refer to as “automatic writing.” Automatic writing is the oldest and purest surrealist technique, so I am not surprised to see it here. Actually, I’m rather glad that it’s not a dead technique; keep it alive, Jaan.

Do I think this is good music? To be honest, I really haven’t a bloody clue. I do, however, know that this sort of thing has been done before. As such, I’m not exactly mindblown or swept into the chaos as other people may be (one review I read seemed so blown away as to write the review in some bizarre, near-gibberish automatic-style). Stepping aside from what I have reviewed (or just yammered about) to what is on the undRess Béton myspace page, I feel the stronger tracks by undRess Béton are the ones streaming online and not available for download. Tracks such as “inside a couch” are outright unsettling and get me really excited and fascinated since I love this sort of music more than is mentally healthy.

This artist can be going places if she polishes up her game and looks at what other artists have done in this particular vein. If you are already interested in experimental music, then this will most likely at least warrant a spin, but if constant deviation from any coherence makes you ill, then steer clear of this; it will only make you sick. I personally, enjoy this, in a way. I’m not entirely sure; “ambivalent” will henceforth be known as my middle name. tarentaliogy defloration is available online for free download (thus why I’m reviewing it), so there’s no risk other than taking up some hard drive space… or damaging your mind.



undRess Béton at myspace