RLW: C.D. by Penultimate Press
Ralf Wehowsky is coming back with his double cd album published by invaluable and always on the spot with their choice of releases Penultimate Press.
He has been collaborating with such array of different artists such as: Merzbow, Andrew Chalk, Jim O'Rourke, Achim Wollscheid, Lionel Marchetti, Kevin Drumm, Kouhei Matsunaga and Bruce Russell.
His new album hides a concept which you may realise by deciphering the title: C.D. which stands for Colonia Dignidad - infamous religious sect of German origin that fled the persecution to Chile in 1961.
As they have been prosecuted for child abuse in Germany, the group escaped to Chile in 1961. As many similar religious sects, on the outside it looked as a unified, god-fearing community with adjusted cultural activities and social welfare, but inside and in its environment by oppression, sexual abuse, and exploitation. In the 1970s, it well served Pinochet's regime of terror, by aiding in the imprisonment and torture of political prisoners, weapons production, etc. Since the end of the 1980s, there has been a legal reappraisal of the C.D.'s crimes in Chile. Its successor organization makes a living from tourism.
Ralf approached the theme using the eyewitness recordings, and reworked the instrumental parts using a strategy and an algorithm of midi instruments.
These are two long suites - each for one part of cd.
Cd1 (Reue?) is about contradictory contents of the statements found after the dissolution of the sect: Denial of atrocities to glorification of the C.D. by leaders who returned to Germany against the professed traumas of formerly abused inmates and exploited community workers.
Cd 2 (Knochenstückchen) is about the atmosphere.
In many ways I could use a term of isolationism to describe the contents but there is so many oblique strategies that Ralf used that remind me of modern contemporary music like Anton Webern with the touch of Ralf's previous work. It has a dense, claustrophobic atmosphere which can be strangely enough excellent to ponder and meditate on the contents and the main theme. Wehowsky is an high class erudite and you won't be able to escape this narrative by skipping tracks - it seamlessly moves on from one theme to another with help of electronics distorting the report slightly - only to remind that we are not only passive observers but participants of this horrific show.
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