Review: Gurun Gurun - Kon B

Not one for the fainthearted this one. Gurun Gurun are a Czech quartet (Tomas Knoflicek, Jara Tarnovski, Ondrej Jezek, and Federse) who specialise in a heady mix of drone, electronica and musique concrete. The band, named after a fictional planet from the old school Slovak children's sci-fi TV series, utilise guitars, analogue synthesizers, turntables, acoustic instruments and digital effects to create wierd soundscapes that can vary from stark minimalism redolent of decaying urban landscapes to more pastoral swathes of melodic repetition. All of this, on Kon B, is accompanied by the haunting vocals of Japanese artists Cuushe, Cokiyu, and Miko.

I'm going to forsake my normal reviewing ' track by track' approach for no other reason than this album should be taken as a whole; there is a weird flow about it. The movement from discordant electro-acoustic musings to some glacial drones seems natural and the aural dissonance of some tracts are made indescribably beautiful by the plaintive vocals. That this album takes its lead from musique concrete pioneers such as Schaeffer, Xenakis and Parmegiani I would say is a given, but to class this album as purely a concrete piece of work is doing it a disservice for there are moments of clarity and elegance and, underneath some of the sonic dissonance, there is a childlike quality; an innocence betrayed by the vocals and some of the simple melodies that raise their heads above the noisy parapet. If all of this sounds a bit muddled and chaotic then it is a true reflection of 'Kon B' - a gloriously chaotic and yet hauntingly beautiful piece....but, like I say, not for the fainthearted. Lovers of music that is experimental and avant-garde will adore this record, the rest, well, you don't know what you are missing.

Gurun Gurun have found a spiritual home in Japan's Home Normal label and 'Kon B' can be purchased via the label's Bandcamp page here