The Putney
The Putney - a collaborative effort of Peter Kuhlmann - of the aliases Namlook, Syn, Air, Silence, and the obscure Electronic Music Center - and the largely unknown session musician Ludwig Rehberg, whose only known group project, excluding The Putney, was a short-lived ethno-electronica Taklamakan (he also performed on several German new wave records by bands such as Overdrive, Mixed Emotions and Frank Duval).
The aural qualities of The Putney are diverse and regularly defy description. There were two self-titled records issued by this group, and both are subtly distinct from each other, whilst sharing a mutual free-form aesthetic (indubitably, the music was improvised, or at least partially). At the time of its release, it was unprecedented on the FAX label, and was in many ways ground-breaking (though underrated and forsaken to the vaults of electronica history). Many tracks lack a rhythmic edifice of any kind, and the structures are generally negligible. There are none of Namlook's layered ambient pads here. This is truly avant-garde material.
Tunes like "Aeol's Harp" (which, in point of fact, is entirely devoid of "tunes" or any sort of patent melodies), which consists of a metallic harp-like instrument "plucked" almost arbitrarily, navigating across a crepuscular landscape of industrial echoes, monastic chanting and chiming bells. "Clockwork" is a minimalistic sound exploration, akin to 70's Krautrock pioneers such as Cluster and Conrad Schnitzler which gradually morphs into grim, unsettling motorik akin to Neu!'s more experimental material. "Earl of Burlington" and "Blue Depression" are pure noise-scapes, with unrelenting drone miasmas, low-frequency grinding and churning; absolute darkness; "Tower to a Wall" and "Putney Dust" are hard-hitting, menacing rave stompers, whilst "Pegasus & Andromeda" is the archetypal brooding, callous ambient saga, in true FAX style, akin to Outland and Namlook's early solo discs. On the other end of the spectrum, "Amourette" is a charming, triumphant Berlin-school type track, in the vein of late 70's/80's Tangerine Dream and Harmonia; "Appendix", beginning with unadulterated percussive scratches - laying the rhythmic foundation for the entire duration - progresses over eighteen minutes from mechanical to human, with a gorgeous coda of arpeggios, sweeps and sci-fi FX; "Angel Circle" is a beguiling 12-minute excursion across the galaxies, steadily evolving and rarely, if ever, static - this, serving as the opening to the first album, is perhaps intended as a reminder that this is, indeed, a FAX disc, and Pete Namlook is still featured on this record; and finally, the quirky, concise "Finis" is a bittersweet curtain-closer, a simple, distant melody played on a lone keyboard, with no extraneous instrumentation or supplementation.
DISCOGRAPHY:
"The Putney", 1993; CAT#:PK 08/76, Label: Fax +49-69/450464 (reissued in 2010 on the Ambient World sub-label as AW 064)
1. Angel Circle (12:41)
2. Putney Dust (10:12)
3. Aeol's Harp (23:27)
4. Pegasus & Andromeda (12:34)
5. Amourette (8:01)
"The Putney II", 1995; CAT#:PK 08/98, Label: Fax +49-69/450464
1. Earl of Burlington (12:18)
2. Tower to a Wall (12:05)
3. Clockwork (7:25)
4. Blue Depression (9:48)
5. Appendix (18:00)
6. Finis (2:01) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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