I Put a Record On

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ALBUM INFORMATION

Total Tracks: 11   Total Length: 46:54

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Amelia Raitt

eMusic Contributor

Amelia Raitt is a former writer for the television program Mr. Belvedere and has been writing about pop music of all colors and stripes for eMusic since 2005. S...more »

04.22.11
Gudrun Gut, I Put a Record On
2007 | Label: monika enterprise / Morr Music GBR

If you've heard of Gudrun Gut before, you probably know her as one of three things: an early member of Einstürzende Neubauten, Monika Enterprise and Moabit Musik's label head or the co-presenter of Oceanclub radio program every Friday night in Berlin with DJ/producer Thomas Fehlmann. Known for her many collaborations, after one listen to I Put a Record On, though, you'll be hard-pressed to explain why Gut hasn't recorded a (truly) solo album yet. The key track here is “Move Me,” which sounds like “Pomp and Circumstance” run through Lee “Scratch” Perry's studio with a woman whispering over the results. It's a remarkable achievement, and a totally singular piece of work — much like the rest of the I Put a Record On, which moves easily from its avant dub beginnings to Morr-styled electropop (“Rock Bottom Riser”) and what sounds like backwoods house (“The Land”). It's a wild ride, but fans of experimental electronic music are guaranteed to find something they'll love once they, ahem, put it on.

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Sample-based crooning

Tezby

Reminiscent of the sample-based crooning textures of Thomas Fehlmann and Holger Hiller, this is a delightful collage of singing, melodious snippets and machine harmonies. Excellent accompaniment for hours at the computer, iPod listening or night driving.

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Hansestrasse

NYCGUY

Absolutely stellar at Spirale Bar in Berlin.

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They Say All Media Guide

Since Gudrun Gut has been a fixture in Germany’s experimental and electronic music communities for over three decades — performing with Malaria! and founding the Ocean Club collective and her Monika label along the way — it’s a little surprising that it took so long for her first solo album to arrive. However, I Put a Record On is well worth the wait, full of impressionistic tone poems about the strange ways that desire, dreams, and memories work. “Move Me” opens the album with a collage of ticking clocks, gasping breaths, shimmering accordions, and shout-outs to Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” that manages to be shadowy, elusive, and urgent all at once. Gut’s music nods to Berlin’s thriving minimal techno scene (and her friend and Ocean Club collaborator Thomas Fehlmann mixed some of these tracks), but I Put a Record On branches out in unexpected musical and emotional directions. On many electronic-based albums, a cover of Smog’s “Rock Bottom Riser” would be unexpected at best, and her dusky, sibilant voice and serpentine melodies lend “Cry Easy” and “Tip Tip” a wry sensuality echoed by the hip-swaying shuffle-tech rhythms of “Girlboogie 6.” This track, like most of I Put a Record On, is strange and seductive in equal measures; “Blatterwald” pairs a strutting bassline and swishing beat with a storm of distorted guitars and feedback, while “Last Night” sets impressions of a night out gone awry to synths and jazzy guitars that tickle and pop like champagne fizz. Gut’s forays into big band and cabaret make I Put a Record On even more surreally seductive, especially since they’re paired with electronic and found sounds that melt together in an evocative blur, as on “The Land,” which glides along on a four-on-the-floor beat past looping cellos and bubbly clarinets like a bullet train through the countryside. As the album unwinds, it grows even more abstract, with samples of laughter and nightlife giving “Sweet” and “Pleasuretrain” the feeling of memories you can hear; “The Wheel,” I Put a Record On’s loveliest and most thoughtful track, sounds like Gut is thinking aloud on a busy summer street. Subtly haunting, this album is a love song to the trancelike state that can happen when you put a record on. – Heather Phares

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