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 WALDTEUFEL
Eines Gottes Spur
2003
10" vinyl
Eislicht Eis033
For reasons of time and domestic geography it's difficult for me
to review vinyl, so on the rare occasion when I get the house to
myself I have to move fast. This is good for me. I usually listen
to CDs over and over again, but with vinyl I'm forced to make instant
assessments. So it was with Waldteufel's Eines
Gottes Spur. Marcus Woolf is the Wander-vögel
of German neofolk in a perpetual quest for the roots of Teutonic
heathendom.
I certainly belong to the vinyl generation, but as a teenager I
preferred gigs and beer to buying records so I'm not too familiar
with them. Now in this world of PCs, camcorders, video, CD and DVD
players - all with different controls, what could be simpler than
a displayless, keyboardless record deck? Well, for a start, my ancient
record deck hasn't got a setting for 10"s, and to make matters
worse the A side of this recording plays at 33 rpm but the B side
plays at 45 rpm! So, after a couple of false starts eating into
my frantically precious home-alone-time, I got to hear the music
as it was intended to be heard.
'Mein Blut' combines primitive ritual - particularly a good organic
drum pattern - with a distorted electronic sound suggestive of a
buzz saw. 'Stärke uns I' is a very low and deep-throated (almost
to the point of croaking) shamanic chant. 'Stärke uns II' has
some similarity as you might expect, while 'Stürme' - with
percussion and something like an electronic squeezebox sound - is
a more conventional song but only just.
With Marcus Woolf you're not getting music that 'suggests' ritual.
This is the real thing and despite the electronic/industrial elements
the musical sound here stretches back before European music as we
know it to the dawn of religious experience. While shamanic ritual
is an important element of the pagan/magical scene, I can't think
of any obvious musical comparisons, so this would be a pretty special
addition to any record collection.
Rik - 18 July 2003
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