Kreidler - Eve Future EP
(Wonder)
Sonic Youth called their 1999 look back at modern avant music Goodbye 20th Century. Kreidler's new EP has similar motives, but Eve Future isn't bidding farewell to the comparatively recent past. Instead perhaps this EP should be subtitled Goodbye 17th Century, as Kreidler is attempting to create classical music, most specifically baroque and romantic music of two to three hundred years ago.
At this point, you're probably whining "chamber orchestra," and questioning what would be so new and/or interesting about that. The thing is though that Kreidler is using much the same instrumentation they did when they were creating rock/electronic groove music. There are no strings, but there are MIDI keyboards; there are no tympanis, but there are drum machine click-patterns; etc., etc. As a result there's the vibe of retro-futurism that permeates so much of current electronic music, but instead of looking back to, say, the 1980s, Kreidler look waaaaaay, way back.
Such an idea might seem pretentious as fuck, but Kreidler avoid those creative pitfalls by keeping everything at a small scale: sounds are never large or loud, and structures are always tight and compact. The longest song is the six minute "Circulus," but even this song is built upon a simple repeated pattern that effortlessly unfolds. The song starts as merely a twinkling music box, but as more instruments are added, the textures swirl around each other, burgeoning outward. "L'Autre Main" even brings in a militaristic drummer-boy-beat, but its weak, hollow drum machine sound makes it seem like that of a toy soldier instead of creating some sort of apocalyptic umph.
Eve Future represents an interesting twist on the retro-futurism of modern electronic music and a surprising complete change in direction for Kreidler after the cut-and-paste fuck-ups they created with Chicks on Speed. An extremely pleasant listen that's a must for Kreidler fans but not necessarily worth the price of import otherwise.
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