Three pilots. One recipe. A construction manual. Machine. Apparatus. Arbeit, Färber, zeitblom. The 3 musicians have been collaborating as ‘Automat’ since the end of 2011. Their debut features Lydia Lunch, Genesis P-Orridge & Blixa Bargeld. It's a Berlin affair.
Jochen Arbeit, the guitarist who came to world prominence with Die Haut and Einstürzende Neubauten; Achim Färber, a sought-after drummer with the likes of Project Pitchfork, Prag or Phillip Boa; and finally the bassist zeitblom, known from Sovetskoe Foto and through his award winning radio play works.
Automat, a constant groooove. An album, as you would imagine flying to be if you have never flown: a steady glide from leaving the apartment to reaching the destination. Automat tells of Berlin, once a city with 4 airports. Tempelhof makes the start: reverberating cowbells, an urgent bass sequence, chopped meanderings, an evil recollection that reminds of its heyday. Schönefeld, where the guitars flange and the delays bounce. Gatow swings to the Ebow. And Tegel. No question. Tegel grooves most elegantly. We would not have expected anything less.
Three narratives – of a lake with a menacing name, of an enchanted mountain, of strange roads – feature within Automat's otherwise instrumental epic. Three guests, three additional voices and storytellers to speak to us: Lydia Lunch, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Blixa Bargeld. Chimera of Transgression. Guests, yes, but actually they are much more: old acquaintances, good friends, trusted colleagues. You can hear how they work their way into the pieces without taking them over, but lending that certain something and thus contributing to the idea of a band. Lighthouses.
Automat is naturally the sum of its parts, and all of them have learned and taught during the post-punk era. One may recall the time the mid-1980s, when the UK industrial-oriented artists discovered dance music. Automat docks onto that – sawing, ringing guitars and dub-reggae bass lines meet in empty hangars with harsh, slow breakbeat rhythms garnished by ticking percussion instruments from the most exciting and remote places on earth – and takes the dance into the present day.
