When I heard the first tones of this release and saw the track titles, I was quite sceptical: could a band/ project naming itself ‘Aalfang mit pferdekopf’ be interesting? Wasn’t this just a ‘fun-project’? (It means something as ‘fishing on eels with a horsehead.’)
Listening to the first track (the titletrack) didn’t make anything better. I heard almost nothing except some guy impersonating a chicken, and some other strange vocal sounds.
But then came track two ‘Jaja ungarinyin und nun zur leiche am ufer’ which is divided into three parts. Again the vocal experiments were present, but also some nice drones and electric sounds and quite surprisingly, folkish guitarplay, almost undisturbed by any effects. After a while, the sonic experimentation went over into a catchy song…
It disappears as easily as it appeared. Electronic sounds and field recordings (children laughing, objects moving) take over and the song is gone. Absurd sound samples are to be heard, sometimes annoying because it is like you are listening to a bullshit record of people talking nonsense into a microphone with helium in their lungs. Luckily, the overall atmosphere is serious and mysterical.
This is the main procedure that is followed on this record. Poppy guitarlines return, accompanied by a strange rhythm-sequences, just to disappear a little later into mysterical sound sculptures.
‘Aalfang mit Pferdekopf’ might be a little mad, but the music is pretty fascinating, I’m positively surprised.
