VOICE CRACK: Shock_Late
Entenpfuhl | emm lp 06 | LP

Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang, aka Voice Crack, return with an LP of sonic experiments created using their eclectic collection of "cracked everyday electronics". The material on this record was recorded in 1998, and it's more than possible that this is a re-issue (no press notes!), but in either case we're backtracking a few years. I have thoroughly enjoyed any project of late involving this inventive improvisational duo, from their recent collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide (see bitsbotsandsigns, released on Erstwhile records earlier this year), or their numerous guest spots on compilation discs. What attracts me most about their work is their acute sonic sensibility. Their soundscapes, always improvised and created using these cracked (i.e., tampered-with) everyday electronics, are filled with subtle shifts, a host of sounds sometimes quiet and sometimes more intrusive, and always dramatic and engaging. This is music for active listening; nothing you want to sit back and relax to, but rather something which invites and provokes an original response from both your body and your mind. Fantastic stuff. [Richard di Santo]
www.incursion.org
 

Voice Crack Shock_Late ENTENPFUHL EMM LP 06 VINYL LP (2000)

Time is fleeting, the hour is late, so now's the time to investigate these famous Swiss experimentalists who create the most goldarned human manifestation of noise within the entire European mainland today. This rek has a few affinities with early Merzbow, about the time of Pornoise 1kg, when he too favoured the use of violent synth swooping attacks along with tape loops forming a thumping drive rhythm. But Voice Crack's smorgasbord of smoochy smut is a lot more manageable than the 'Duke of Din', as Merzbow is known in these parts. The Swiss duo don't want to alienate, and never settle for an inhuman or repellent noise on this LP. The craft, the manual labour, the home-madeness of it all is always detectable and ever-present.
You'll hear the same deeply layered 3-D effect as they achieve on the record they made with Otomo, Bits and Bobs. Far from an empty, formless grind-o-groans, this is a structured panoply of slices of chocolate devil's food cake sound-events, all set in motion simultaneously like a pack of running hares going over the hill. A richness of creative racket. And it performs miracles of restorative balm for the weary, run-down executive worker; this music massages all the pleasurable pressure-points on the body, feeds you, washes you, clothes you and puts you to bed, there to gently stroke your genitals to orgasm. How many records can offer all that?
Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang are unique and important experimenters,and are renowned in their Swiss homeland as inventors of the purple bubble-gum machine. Bubble-gum filled with tiny insects. And  grandfather clocks, pendulums as grey as Father Time's beard, swinging next to soap-on-a-rope. Your eggs are done. Take another slippery step upon the rubber matting.
ED PINSENT/The Sound Projector (a brilliant magazine by the way.f.d.)
 

Vital Weekly 244
VOICE CRACK - SHOCK LATE (LP by Entenpfuhl)

Years and years ago I saw a brilliant concert by two regular looking guys, who were standing behind a large table, filled with cables, objects and broken electronica. They produced furious noises by touching these objects, and while it was loud, they had everything under control. These two guys were Moslang and Guhl, who play with a third guy as Voice Crack (although on this LP just as a duo again). They belong to my favourite improvisers. No laptops, just old fashioned handwork. I am not the only lover, so its a true delight to see this LP coming out on Entenpfuhl, Frank Dommert's sleepy yet never quiet label. Frank is also responsible for the Sonig label, which releases Mouse On Mars related projects and it's to be hoped that this LP will get wide attention. Over the years the sounds by Voice Crack have softened, maybe they got bored with loud noise?, who knows. They play four subtle pieces of crackling electronica, in which more broken stuff arise and fall out. Much a like the stuff modern laptoppers play around, but Voice Crack has a strong own voice and sound much different then the plug-in everybody else is using. So if you are bored with that stuff, hark back to the old stuff and discover Voice Crack. (FdW)

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