Ever since I can remember, I have been an admirer of H.R. Giger’s works. Probably the movie Alien (1979) made such an impact – I was 12 back then – that in my later life, I always kept an eye out for books and art. A big poster of Debbie Harry’s KooKoo was in my little boy’s room on the wall, and as my musical taste shifted a few years later, it got company of an even larger poster of To Mega Therion by Celtic Frost. And now I am 58, and I STILL have a movie poster of Species hanging in my study. But what was it that appealed to me in his works?
While the music is playing – more about the music later – I get one of the many books I have about him, and I start reading and flipping through the pages. There are so many different aspects and things in his works that should give him the title of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His surrealistic fusion of organic and inorganic (read: mechanical, artificial, technical, synthetic, metallic, etc) is, of course, the most obvious. Additionally, the architectural aspects (for which he studied), the pornographic, and the functional (again: he studied architecture and industrial design) should be mentioned. I doubt that the Victorian era alone would have given rise to a steampunk movement, suggesting that Giger’s works facilitated the combination of elements. And the fact that he made the backside of a garbage truck erotic is something that not many others have done; No one, I think. Functional: Furniture and the Korn microphone stand (so beautiful), and as for architecture, the drawings and sketches he did for the many Alien movies speak for themselves. In the same way that Gaudí created a Barcelonian skyline, there should be a Swiss town somewhere with a skyline of buildings having intercourse, boobs or whatever. Not only that one building, Château St. Germain in Gruyères, with amongst others a majestic spiral-based ceiling, making it look like a cathedral.
Leaves me the difficult task of reviewing this album. Twelve artists who tried to capture the dynamics of ‘the master’ and how he made an impact on my thinking. In all honesty, whatever I write is not fair because I simply can’t write an objective review. This sampler is all good for a sampler. There are some old names (happy to see SSHE RETINA STIMULANTS and Modelbau), some new names (for me, never heard of Lars Bröndum or MoCM and Schema Musicalis before), some really nice tracks (“Birth Machine” by Mario Lino Stancati) and some a bit less (“Mute Body Reconstruction” by Red Stars Over Tokyo) … But as stated before, this is an album I am not able to hear without my personal interpretation of the subject. And because of that, it’s crucial you visit the Bandcamp page and at least listen to this one yourself to make up your mind.
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