Album: Von Südenfed

You can't keep a good man down - nor, for that matter, Mark E Smith, who follows up the most potent Fall album in ages with a techno-prose experiment that finds him busking vocal lines over the mostly synthesised backdrops of Mouse On Mars duo Andi Toma and Jan St Werner. Some parts are the electronic equivalent of a car crash, grisly yet strangely compelling, as Smith chants in German over squelchy synth noises ("Speech Contamination/ German Fear of Österreich"), mumbles "We live in strange and mysterious times" over a bricolage of electronic bleeps ("Serious Brainskin"), or picks an argument with a neighbour ("Jbak Lois Lane"). But when MOM's garage-techno crunch is in perfect alignment with Smith's berserker ranting, as on "Fledermaus Can't Get It" and "Family Feud", the results acquire a synergy all of their own. The techno pummelling is leavened with more "organic" elements, notably the juju guitar of "Dearest Friends" and the blues guitar of "Chicken Yiamas", which resembles one of Can's Ethnological Forgeries, but with Smith discussing boiled chicken over the top. Weird isn't the word.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Fledermaus Can't Get It', 'Family Feud', 'Chicken Yiamas'

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