Kraftwerk’s “Man Machine” is no longer just a fixed idea. On “Constructing Towers”, it is everywhere. Skye Klein has made researching the symbiosis between the human and the robotic his personal quest and Terminal Sound System his personal loudspeaker for transmitting results. On genre-defining albums for labels like Relapse and Hive, nature and technology were neither each other’s antipoles (as the huggophile New Age movement would have it) nor mutually complementary forces (as promoted by supposedly “progressive” chemical and industrial conglomerates). Rather, their relationship, dominated by fluent borders, resembled that of a Siamese Twin inseperably connected by a single, panfully and passionately beating heart: Staying alive and living together is not just a question of choice or necessity, but of fate.

A similar message can now be drawn from “Constructing Towers”, Terminal Sound System’s second album for eclectic Australian label Extreme and a logical continuation of the course taken on predecessor “Compressor”. Mirroring the multiphonic outset of his record company, Skye uncompromisingly and unappolegetically fuses genres, effortlessly juxtaposes the terms “electronica” and “rock” and displays a contageous penchant for mood swings others would consider life threatening.

It is a wild rollercoaster ride, which stretches from furious polyrhythmic uptempo tracks brimming with irresistable upbeat energy to eery, slowgrooving soundscapes which would make for a perfect soundtrack to the next David Lynch movie. There is a hightened sense of dynamics, as the music dies down to a mysterious, muffled shuffle, before determinedly rising like a firespewing phoenix and building towards a haunting climax.

What defines Klein’s territory is not so much the ingredients of his blend, which others have explored before. Not even his knack for positively surprising arrangements, which seldomly move linearly and show an interest in interlacing different tracks into unified song structures, is what really sets him apart from colleagues. Rather, is the underlying concept of “Constructing Towers”, which enriches the music both on a subtle, subconscious and a creative, cognitive level.

Instead of merely crossing over from one style to the next and back again for the sake of delicately spicing up his pieces, Klein gives a breathtaking demonstration of how one genre can seamlessly be transformed into another by nothing but musical means. On eight-minute showstopper “Alaska”, possibly the most striking example of this techique, he opens with a delirious sort of futuristic Proto-Indie-Rock on top of a flexible Bass line, switching into Metal-like episodes of heavyness by a mere change of chords and smoothly plunging into a cathedral organ-drone mid-way. Likewise, the pure Jazz arrithmetics of “Firefly Butoh” are organically pearced by chopped up samples and digital cuts, while “In your Planet” melts from dark, elastic Drum n Bass into a monstrous electrostep attack.

Barriers between genres, the album suggests, are real, but they are surmountable without having to make use of prohibitively expensive electronic equipment. In this respect, the warm, natural timbral pallette of “Constructing Towers” must be regarded as a statement of intent.

So must his multipolar stance towards human, humanoid and robotic aspects of art. As a listener, these perspectives even become interchangeable to a point where every theme could just as well’ve been played by Klein or one of his machines. In contrast to the typically bleak outlook of the guilde of Science Fiction utopians, however, there is nothing frightening about this thought at all.

Instead, the album depicts it as liberating: For composers, choosing between electronic and acoustic means is essentially no longer a question of aesthetics or tools, but of philosophy – and therefore of choice and will. And once listeners have freed themselves from the conservative comfort of being able to easily tell one from the other, this man-machine-made music will offer them deeply rewarding listening experiences outside of confining genre definitions.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Terminal Sound System
Homepage: Terminal Sound System at MySpace
Homepage: Extreme Music