Lassigue Bendthaus - Render

"For another clean image we delete what's beautiful, what's surreal..."

I can take or leave a couple tracks from the middle of this album (like JKTV/Otaku, which is a bit cheese for me), but the first two tracks and last three (not counting the "cover" of Cage's 4'33" - exactly 273 seconds of pure digital silence) are phenomenal. LB uses a lot of "retro" sounds, but the themes and compositions were definitely ahead of their time.

It's a pity this album is well out of print -- if you find a copy, grab it!

Industrial dance music in the mid-90s was awash in guitars as many groups and projects took cues from earlier releases from Ministry and NIN. Even groups that leaned toward EBM like Front Line Assembly and Front 242 were bringing guitars into their music. Lassigue Bendthaus' 'Render' release was a breath of fresh air. It took electronic body music to new heights with its ultra-processed sounds and samples and wrapped them in a glistening electonic sheen, sort of like fusing EBM and Autechre. Tracks like 'Molecular Modelling' and 'Alias' are good examples. The then new sounds of jungle/breakbeat were introduced on 'How Many Angels Can Dance On The Head Of A Modem'. There were very few bands that were coming out with the sounds found on this album (circa 1994) as that direction would be pursued towards the end of the decade by bands/projects like Haujobb, Gridlock, Asche and Converter. A highly recommended release!

This is the soundtrack for the heady optimism and hopefulness of the dot-com age. Recorded while Uwe Schmidt was in Japan and punctuated with samples from Japanese TV, this album is an exploration of technology and our increasingly simulated and computer-mediated existence. For instance, the first song Fiber starts with "Fiber line, shine and light the globe, enlight, communicate, connect". Although many songs indicate a concern for what is lost with technology's progress ("Blur" is about isolation, "Alias" uses antialiasing as a metaphor for glossing over reality, "Render" talks about how simulation has replaced reality, "Otaku" is about Japan's otaku subculture), the tone still seems hopeful. Excellent arrangements and sounds. I personally consider this one of Uwe Schmidt's best works. Well worth it.