langmaschine is CD of the friend who praises the book of the same title which is written (as Soundmachine it translates) by S. Kleiner of Chlada and Marcus. As shown the fact that Klangmaschine entire history of generally known popcultural destruction entire should write on new method, you try. Explosion sound anti-sound? Because popculture became ideology of 21st century, directly there is the countless attempt which subdivides the explosion sound of phenomenon with discoursive method. Something is when and the explosion sound which is discussed it is expressed? With scandalous method the answering of Chlada and Kleiner: About the zombie! The artist who with this accumulation becomes the feature with electronic music is some person of the best player. These artists to sound of the microscope of Taylor Deupree reflect the fact that in ideology these theoreticians rationalize in the book from the interference of complicated techno of Twerk. The principal theory of this CD should mean the fact that explosion sound has died. Here there is a pure tone of tomorrow!

The paragraph above is what happened when I glitched the press release text of Ritornell's newest compilation, Klangmaschine, by translating it into Japanese and then back again into English using Babelfish. The best thing about that text is that it translates the word 'pop' as 'explosion sound.’ Klangmaschine is the title of a book about pop music by Chlada and Kleiner, basically accusing pop music of being a zombie. With scandalous method, indeed.

Musically this release is not that different from other Ritornell releases. Most of the contributors are already well known modern digital tone fondlers and most of them turn in above-average performances. Mr. Thaemlitz is probably one of the most hit-or-miss artists I know, but his track here knocks the ball out of the park. He comes through with a long droning tone that's occasionally broken up by buffer overrides and tiny percussion breaks. John Harding's 'sinnmaschine' is a brilliant piece of manipulated latent glitch jazz with a processed trumpet tone that flutters and shimmers and coyly hides its face behind a fan. Taylor Deupree's 'reproduktionmaschine' is another great tune - well, not a tune so much as the sound of a dirty blank cassette playing back. Is it just me, or has Deupree been leaving the Nord Modular in the cupboard for his last few releases and been doing more stuff with samples? Maybe it's just me. Alva Noto, for his part, finds another great highpitched errorbreak lurking in the depths of his hard drive. His track isn't up to the standard he set on that collaboration he did with Sakamoto Ryuichi, but it does have a Kraftwerk sample in it. The name of the track, 'menschmaschine,' should have been a dead giveway.

But you don't need me to go on and on with the superlatives - all you need to know is that this is probably Ritornell's best and most cohesive album of the year. If you are one of those people who still buys music, I suggest you exchange your currency for this product.

The music is good, but how about the theory? Like Natalie Imbruglia, I'm torn. This disc is supposed to be a soundtrack to a book about how pop is dead. On the one hand, I'd love to agree. Filesharing programs haven't killed the mainstream pop manufacturing industry, but they have certainly torn it a new N*SYNC-hole. The proliferation of cheap, high-powered PCs has put a fully spec'd, if underutilized, digital sampler and video editing station in every middleclass home. People can even make music on their cell phones and gameboys these days. Pop is superfluous. Pop is irrelevant. I agree, Chlada and Kleiner: pop is a zombie. But like most zombies, no matter how many shotgun blasts I give it, it still keeps coming, and it really wants to eat my brain.

The zombie is so hard to kill. For every one hundred horrible pop artists, there always seems to be one or two that are actually good and vital and alive. And they influence the underground, the same way that the underground influences the horrible artists. After all, let's face it - mainstream rap is a kind of pop, and there's something undeniably appealing about the productions of the Neptunes and Timbaland. It's all well and good to publish your elaborate theories about why and how pop died, but no matter how heavy those publications are, throwing them at a zombie is not going to do much good.

So ignore the theory and keep listening to the music. We can always kill the zombie tomorrow. Praise Deleuze and pass the ammunition.