Released
March, 1998
Label
Drone Records
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Contact
Stefan Knappe
Drone Records
Gneisenaustrasse 56
28201 Bremen
Germany
Last Edit/Update
06 juli, 1998
Das Erdwerk
LEBEN IM WARTESAAL
7"
(first edition: 250 copies)
Track Listing
Side A:
1. Leben im Wartesaal A
2. Leben im Wartesaal M
3. Leben im Wartessal C
Side B:
1. Abnehmende Begeisterung
This 7" by Swiss duo Das Erdwerk contains some of the most minimal
sound compositions imaginable. Aside from the short moments when a screeching tone is
sustanied, or a wall of interference briefly materializes, the pieces on Leben Im
Wartesaal consists of isolated clicks, pops, ticks and steely scratches. The silences
between these individual aural incidents often appear to be as important to the
compositions, as the sounds and noises themselves. Then again, the single's title roughly
translates into "Life in the Waiting Room;" and to someone spending a lifetime
in a waiting room, Das Erdwerk's sound universe may not only be a
familiar one, but, their four miniature assemblages of these sounds could quite possibly
be imagined as works of the most exquisitely intricate musical design.
Drone Records is
once more responsible for making a unique and thought provoking single available. This;
the first edition of Das Erdwerk's Leben Im Wartesaal has been
pressed in 250 copies on grey vinyl with little black flecks that resemble nothing so much
as a dish of magnetic filaments. The cover is made from an oversized piece of heavy brown
paper, with symbolic imprints in black and bronze.
