Minimal Compact Records (label)
21 October 2019 (released)
21 October 2019
(Re)creation story: Israeli/Netherlands post-punk polymaths Minimal Compact (Berry Sakharof (guitars/ keyboards/vocals); Malka Spigel (bass/keyboards/vocals); Samy Birnbach aka DJ Morpheus (vocals); Rami Fortis (guitar/vocals); and Max Franken (drums) go back to their (once) future and recover seven (g)oldies (using a mix of live recordings and re-enacted performance) and craft seamless new track ‘Holy Roller’.
This time-travelling trip (criminally lasting 30 minutes short) is conducted under the watchful gaze of long-time contemporary and collaborator Colin ‘Wire’ Newman whose desk-twiddling angular-aesthetic shines and sheens throughout.
Reclaim the beats: Expertly showing up the post-millennial download upstream context-free pretenders, those who mimic and ape the sounds, styles and poses of history free from the cultural conditions of creation. Algorithm and lose(ers).
Remake/remodel: ‘Statik Dancing’ (from 1981’s eponymous debut E.P.) is a jubilant jerky, jumpy, jagged, jittery jive at odds with the title’s message of statuesque shape-throwing. The internal is eternal in this (c)ode to dancefloor hip-gnosis, all act(ion)s of recalci-trance: ‘We’ve got to learn to know one another … that’s what anthropology’s ALL about’. .
There’s Middle Eastern lurkish delight on 1982’s ‘Take me away’, exotically toxic, cascading, parading, marauding, forlorning, pleading and leading. To where, no one knows. Yet.
‘Nada’, ‘Not knowing’ and ‘The Well’ (from 1984’s ‘Deadly Weapons’) all benefit from their renovations: these renditions are imbued with a polish and sonicness that renders them NOW and THEN. ‘The Well’ in particular is an effervescent luminescent gem replete with Sakharof’s uniquely distinctive tones.
1985’s ‘Raging Souls’ is a delicately poised intricately noised number, ‘My will’ most bears the lingerprint of Newman, its chugglin’ (s)pace illustrative of his role as reducer than producer, the after-effect a sleek, Spartan enterprise.
Revelatory: these past-seers take on the techxistence of today, where the (hu)man-machine ‘Holy Roller’ is a strobe-lit shimmery synthetic tocking clock, one whose face betrays ‘something going on inside … FLASHLIGHT … dancing through the shivers in your mind’. An ultra-vivid scene.
Relive: The past was once theirs, the present and future are too. Recreation is perfection.
