Busy Topic - Vital Weekly
By Vital Weekly
The man behind All Spec Kit is one Andreas Kurtsson from Sweden and active in 'experimental electronica since the mid 90s', playing many concerts and sound installations in Sweden. I never heard of him, but that might be just my ignorance. From the sketchy drawings on the front cover I understand that Andreas uses two mini discs, two CD players and two turntables plus a whole bunch of sound effects to create his music. Whatever is on all of these pre-recorded material, it is not entirely clear. In Kurtsson's own words he likes sounds 'to play together, but remain deaf to each other'. These sounds collide together in a rather ungroovy yet rhythmic manner. It's a kind of ungroovyness that makes the whole thing quite groovy. By using short samples, both on the turntable and the minidisc, this baby becomes a rhythmic affair. Kurtsson calls it popmusic, but that seems to me a bridge too far. But I must agree there is a captivating element in this music. Distorted and processed hou se-hold appliances, static hiss and environmental sounds, they are all used in these skecthes of music. I was reminded a bit of Paul Wirkus' 'Inteletto D'Amore' or Freiband's 'Microbes', though both made from a slightly different angle, the same (uneasy) groovy being present. Quite nice stuff here indeed.
