“Non-Sequential Bills is in the same tradition as Bildschirm's memorable first opus”
1 Simon's Hollow Victory (From High Torque aka Street Victim 1993) 5:19 2 Be Reasonable, It's Only a Million Dollars
(From Heist? What Heist? 1988) 5:38 3 Theme from The Grand Plan (1987) 6:23 4 Cosmic Time (Hare Vogo -Wissenschaftlich- Titles Edit) 1:21 Bildschirm Music
(DDL 18:41) (V.F.) (New Wave & New Berlin School)
You remember Bildschirm? Project as well improbable as crazy which had given us the enormous Kinologie Vol. 1 this last spring. Well, John E Thelin had an E.P. of hidden on the Web and which I had forgotten (euh…yes, another time!) in the chinks of my Laptop. A short E.P. (Even not 20 minutes, but not really expensive at all), NON-SEQUENTIAL BILLS is in the same tradition as Bildschirm's memorable first opus.
Simon's Hollow Victory sets the tone by proposing a rhythmic skeleton which skips abruptly in an envelope which takes all the secrets of the artificial rhythms created by the Propellerheads Reason 9. That sounds very New wave and Synth-Pop a la Gary Numan but with a fascinating creativity that is reminiscent of Stewart Copeland's curt rhythms. One dances, one doesn't dance so much! It's a sort of stop and non-stop disguised with good effects, in particular the specters' ones, and in good lines of melodies as much interrupted and as diversified as the structure of rhythm. Let's say that there are many things which pop up in 5 minutes. Be Reasonable, It's Only a Million Dollars is just as much rich and proposes a hyper nervous structure of rhythm but charmingly catchy. Here again the synths serve the cause of the ambiences effects over a rhythmic pattern which runs like a wild rollercoaster built for the audacious. The effects of percussions here are very interesting and catchy with typists and/or tap-dancing noises which add an inhuman dimension to an already rather crazy structure.
Theme from The Grand Plan stays in the same route with a thing which smells Pop and New Wave in what Devo had of more anfractuous to offer. It's like running constantly in corridors filled of noises and, especially, of nice harmonic patterns blown by a sober but clearly effective synth. Cosmic Time, a title that doesn't appear any more in the repertoire of Bildschirm, is maybe short but is as much crazy as Be Reasonable, It's Only a Million Dollars! A new album of Bildschirm is expected always at the beginning of 2017. In the meantime, this good E.P. will help you to tame your patience. You liked Kinologie Vol. 1? This other soft madness of John E Thelin, is for you.
Sylvain Lupari (July 16th, 2017) ***½**
Available at Bildschirm Bandcamp