album // This Is The Balanescu Quartet
This compilation from The Balanescu Quartet
forms part of Mute's new An Introduction To...
series, where Mute Artists group together songs
chosen by the artists themselves from their Mute Records
back catalogue. These songs are technically still owned by EMI following
their taking over of Daniel Miller's original label
back in the early 2000s, so this is a neat way of maintaining links
between new Mute and old Mute and rehabilitating songs which EMI
will likely have little interest in keeping available. (Call me
cynical, but I always thought EMI's purchase had a lot to do with
getting access to Mute's biggest names - your Depeche Modes
and Mobys - and had little regard to the other,
more varied aspects of Mute's colourful roster.)
This Is The Balanescu Quartet compiles
twelve tracks from their four releases for Mute – Possessed,
Luminitza, Angels And Insects and Maria T
– and is housed in a gatefold cardboard sleeve bearing a chilling
silhouette of Alexander Balanescu in customary
trilby hat. I don't have the vernacular to convincingly describe
the subtleties of classical music, so I won't even embarrass myself
in trying, but that silhouette on the front cover sets the tone
for me and I find these songs altogether rather haunting (something
like 'Coppice', from Angels And Insects, in particular,
or the whimsy-laced-with-darkness of 'Wine's So Good' from Maria
T).
It's not just that sleeve image; Possessed
has haunted me for about six years, for altogether different reasons,
and it's not an album I've been able to listen to without a chill
settling upon me. I was listening to the covers of Kraftwerk
songs contained on that album whilst sat on a London Underground
train just outside Kings Cross St Pancras on the morning of July
7 2005; I had no idea that the reason we were delayed was because
of terrorist activity, so I just sat there listening to Possessed,
which I'd bought the weekend before, and felt pleased I was able
to stave off being at my desk and dealing with my tyrannical boss;
consequently I've always felt a terrific feeling of guilt that I
was enjoying the solitude provided by that train journey while further
up the tracks people had lost their lives in the train explosions.
This Is The Balanescu Quartet serves, for this listener,
as therapy to overcome those feelings.
In doing so, I'm reminded that I – sacrilegiously,
I know – far prefer the Quartet's take on 'Autobahn' than
the Kraftwerk original. I know Kraftwerk's original track was pioneering,
but I've always found it a bit, I don't know, 'clunky' and certainly
over-long (the 7" edit I have is far more appealing), whereas
Balanescu's version has a far more eloquent sound to it. Overall,
even ignoring the obvious attraction afforded by the Kraftwerk covers,
it's always struck me that The Balanescu Quartet's sound would naturally
appeal to fans of electronic music (their melding of strings and
noise on something like 'Revolution', from Luminitza, is
another somewhat obvious example).
This Is The Balanescu Quartet was originally
made available on the merchandise desk at Mute's successful Short
Circuit event at London's Roundhouse in May 2011, and coincided
with their performance on the Friday night (which I couldn't get
into because that room had reached maximum capacity). If one of
the purposes of the An Introduction To... series is to
get more people buying the back catalogue of Mute artists, then
I truly hope This Is The Balanescu Quartet does just that.
This album is well worth a listen if you've never listened to this
esteemed quartet before, or always wondered what all the fuss was
about.
PS Though I haven't written it down anywhere (yet),
I have in my head a Mute 'wish list'. On that wish list is a fantasy
recording of The Balanescu Quartet performing a score for Metropolis
by Fritz Lang, and an archive recording of the Quartet performing
Hendrix songs (including, I recall, a brilliant 'Foxy Lady') as
part of Patti Smith's Meltdown. One can but dream.
cd:
1. Aria (Maria T)
2. Autobahn (Possessed)
3. Coppice (Angels And Insects)
4. East (Luminitza)
5. Wine's So Good (Maria T)
6. Model (Possessed)
7. Revolution (Luminitza)
8. Waltz (Angels And Insects)
9. The Young Conscript And The Moon (Maria T)
10. Still With Me (Luminitza)
11. Love Scene (Angels And Insects)
12. Pocket Calculator (Possessed)
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