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Review on Jane B. ...
By Alternative Press
Disturbingly Dadaistic electronic music from Germany. Enigmatic German producer Felix Kubin (formerly of the electroacoustic duo Klangkrieg) released a charming album called Filmmusik in 1998, but nothing on there prepares one for this four-track 10-inch. Where Filmmusik abounded with endearing eccentricities and whimsical alienness á la Der Plan and the Residents, Jane B. Entrinkt Mit Den Pferden explores a much darker and stranger vein of electronic music. The Dadaist noise collage "Vater Muss Die Stube Peitschen" toggles between extreme high and low frequencies before becoming a Laibach-esque will-to-power ordeal. "Termiten" begins, aptly enough, with an insectoid tone swarm, then turns into a madly percolating march for demented automatons. The EP's high point is the title cut, which begins like a string-laden pop ballad with saccharine female vocals. Swirling warped synths gradually subsume the voice (which is looped and fluctuates in volume), and the "song" gets progressively more absurd and sublime as it goes, like a V/Vm piece taken to its illogical extreme. Veering between wackiness and menace, the perversely brilliant Jane B. exists in a unique domain that's as unfathomable as a New Guinea tribal rite.
Dave Segal