The Brain
Experiments for Guitar + Machines (2020, LP/DD)
Workshop of Filthy Creation WLP02
Website & availability: www.workshop-of-filthy-creation.com
German-born guitarist/synthesist Karl Gottlaus (aka The Brain) is the latest in a long pedigree of cosmic couriers that extends back over half a century to such Teutonic sound engineers as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler, and Kraftwerk. But unlike most of his more famous compatriots, Gottlaus is just as likely to sculpt his dense, monolithic soundscapes with gritty, violent guitar as he is with otherworldly electronic tonalities. His aptly titled debut album, Experiments for Guitar + Machines, explores the dark terrain that intersects abrasive industrial landscapes and brooding ambient shadow worlds. While his analog synth textures (primarily a Minimoog and ARP Odyssey) generate icy sturm und drang backdrops obviously derived from the repetitive minimalist drones of Zeit-era Tangerine Dream and the early Klaus Schulze, his brutal, incendiary guitar work owes much to the Fripp/Frith/Pinhas school of abstract schizoid man mayhem. This is especially true on side one’s two extended tracks, “Molecular Turbulence” and “Abrasions,” where screaming, tortured guitar solos ricochet against synthesized walls of sound like exploding metal from the sky. The album also features intriguing and extensive use of audio generators, which sound as if they’ve been fed through a battery of outboard effects such as ring modulators, filters, fuzz boxes, and echoplexes. Their eerie clang and clatter on “Explorations of a Perimeter beyond the Eye of Nightmares” impart a strangely evocative “machine-over-man" aesthetic that recalls the early iconoclastic work of Kluster and Lard Free. The album decelerates to a relatively quiet, but nevertheless restless, close with “Cold Troubled Sleep.” Its mournful pulsating synthesizer, sweeping audio generator effects, and Frippertronics-inspired guitarisms guide the listener through a bleak, desolate glacial landscape worthy of a Tanguy painting. Though this certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste, for those interested in sonic experimentation, edgy minimalism, and electronic improvisation, Experiments for Guitar + Machines is a rare bird in today’s overpopulated market of faceless MIDI poseurs still mining the now exhausted deposits of their ambient-industrial forefathers.
