"I'm glad you forgot to pack that Swedish CD by Straffet," a correspondent writes in agony and wonder. "I broke my ankle yesterday and it turned out to be the perfect thing to listen to, it really took my mind off my troubles," the wounded fan of all-out, no-holds-barred noise music continues. It... [+] Expand

"I'm glad you forgot to pack that Swedish CD by Straffet," a correspondent writes in agony and wonder. "I broke my ankle yesterday and it turned out to be the perfect thing to listen to, it really took my mind off my troubles," the wounded fan of all-out, no-holds-barred noise music continues. It is a sheer wonder that she would be even be willing to return the CD, entitled Det Har Ar Straffet, perhaps to indicate some kind of special project of the Straffet duo but the accompanying information is pretty vague. This is the kind of masterpiece of messed-up sound that many performers aspire to, but few can really pull off. What makes it so is an elusive phenomenon -- why, after all, would one pile of horrifying noise be a fantastic revelation while another is simply a pain in the posterior? Similarly, the fat and crudely Xeroxed booklet of artwork accompanying this release -- or perhaps it is the music that accompanies the booklet -- seems like the kind of thing anybody can do, but hardly anybody can do well. The Det Har Ar booklet is as magnificent as Mike Schafer's series of Emotional Vomit Xeroxes in the '90s. So it seems these guys are truly inspired graphic artists as well creators of the sort of sonics that noise fiends shall drool over in ravishing appreciation. Let it be established in all clarity that this is not the kind of avant garde music in which the performer starts out on a recognizable musical instrument and then freaks out, at least one finger always on the tether of recognized technical respectability. No, this is sheer sound, the details of which are established in one track as if a series of thrills were being planned for a carnival ride, in another as if a hovercraft was shadowing the exploits of a Pied Piper stomping on appliances as he makes his way through the community. Each of the dozen tracks is simply identified by its timing -- "Best part, no meaning," as Japanese avant-garde performer Toshinori Kondo says. To the two names that are barely legible on the back of the booklet, from the owner of the CD and the guy with the busted ankle: thank you, or "Tak," as they say in Sweden. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide [-] Collapse

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