Pankow - Throw Out Rite
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"Throw Out Rite" is definitely an album which I will remember for long. Mostly because of being so hard for me to evaluate. The ambivalence of hopeless and innovative pieces is so huge that your head may explode. It’s even more intriguing thanks to the fact that I had known nothing about Italian Pankow before having listened to this album and there is hardly any information about the band. It makes impossible for me to situate "Throw Out Rite" in the proper background and we all know that music, especially experimental one, depends on both the time and the environment in which it was created. Take a chance to analyse "Kollaps" only in terms of music…. Impossible!
Pankow are supposed to be pioneers of Italian electronic industrial. The given album was released for the first time in 1983. What’s more it included only 6 tracks then. Now, four more bonus tracks were added. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to find any info which tracks are the bonus ones. It seems to me that these are the last four but I’m not sure. Although the album brings to mind different associations, it is very coherent. That’s why it’s so hard to say.
And since I mentioned the associations, let me develop it a little bit more. "Throw Out Rite" is solidly placed in the 80’s dark independent style. Synthesizers, repeatable bass lines, drum machines, lack of classic vocals and general mechanisation are pretty characteristic for Pankow. However, the first impression may be misleading.
Metaphorically speaking – "Throw Out Rite" is like a caldron. Someone threw inside first tracks of Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly and Einsturzende Neubauten to get their essence but it turned out to be not ironic enough and The Residents, Snakefingera and contemporary (sic!) Lithuanian dark cabaret needed to be added as well. Unfortunately, the mixture was too grotesque so it needed further additives. Schulze’s dark ambient and jazz saxophones were supposed to be the remedies. The result of this weird procedure is the album which, on the one hand could be just buried in history, on the other, quite opposite. "Throw Out Rite" is a living fossil, but inspiring and intriguing. Like European lancelet among animals – it makes people admire it and wonder – how did it survive? Personally, I can compare "Throw Out Rite" to exquisite, expensive beer with one disadvantage – it didn’t mature long enough so its genius taste is combined with unbalanced alcohol. I know, weird comparison.
The best moments? Track no 3, which brings to mind that specific motif from "Matrix Revolutions" from a scene in which fetish club is shown. Also, no 8 is worth mentioning for its nicely intertwined saxophone, which makes "Satellite" the most ambitious track of the album. Equally enjoyable is "Spinnen" oscillating between dark ambient and free jazz, as well as "Zz Walhalla" in which typical front melody is mixed with typical blix singing. Pankow get a big minus for "Voce" which is an underdeveloped version of today’s Obsrra mixed with early The Residents. "Rendez–Vous Dans Un Bois" is also very poor, let me say that, it’s just prolonged to over four minutes interlude.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect "Throw Out Rite" to live long. This album is just too weird, too not up-to-date, too unbalanced to reach modern listeners who would look at it like an educated man looks at good but not great abstract piece of art – with straight face but with no understanding. His intellectualism would be evoked while the album lasts and would be done with the last sound of the last track. Nothing more.
Tracklist:
01. Das Wodkalied
02. Rendez-Vous Dans Un Bois
03. Wait And Search
04. Zz Walhalla
05. Destiny
06. I'm Food For You
07. Voce
08. Satellite
09. Spinnen
10. Senza Titolo
Pankow are supposed to be pioneers of Italian electronic industrial. The given album was released for the first time in 1983. What’s more it included only 6 tracks then. Now, four more bonus tracks were added. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to find any info which tracks are the bonus ones. It seems to me that these are the last four but I’m not sure. Although the album brings to mind different associations, it is very coherent. That’s why it’s so hard to say.
And since I mentioned the associations, let me develop it a little bit more. "Throw Out Rite" is solidly placed in the 80’s dark independent style. Synthesizers, repeatable bass lines, drum machines, lack of classic vocals and general mechanisation are pretty characteristic for Pankow. However, the first impression may be misleading.
Metaphorically speaking – "Throw Out Rite" is like a caldron. Someone threw inside first tracks of Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly and Einsturzende Neubauten to get their essence but it turned out to be not ironic enough and The Residents, Snakefingera and contemporary (sic!) Lithuanian dark cabaret needed to be added as well. Unfortunately, the mixture was too grotesque so it needed further additives. Schulze’s dark ambient and jazz saxophones were supposed to be the remedies. The result of this weird procedure is the album which, on the one hand could be just buried in history, on the other, quite opposite. "Throw Out Rite" is a living fossil, but inspiring and intriguing. Like European lancelet among animals – it makes people admire it and wonder – how did it survive? Personally, I can compare "Throw Out Rite" to exquisite, expensive beer with one disadvantage – it didn’t mature long enough so its genius taste is combined with unbalanced alcohol. I know, weird comparison.
The best moments? Track no 3, which brings to mind that specific motif from "Matrix Revolutions" from a scene in which fetish club is shown. Also, no 8 is worth mentioning for its nicely intertwined saxophone, which makes "Satellite" the most ambitious track of the album. Equally enjoyable is "Spinnen" oscillating between dark ambient and free jazz, as well as "Zz Walhalla" in which typical front melody is mixed with typical blix singing. Pankow get a big minus for "Voce" which is an underdeveloped version of today’s Obsrra mixed with early The Residents. "Rendez–Vous Dans Un Bois" is also very poor, let me say that, it’s just prolonged to over four minutes interlude.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect "Throw Out Rite" to live long. This album is just too weird, too not up-to-date, too unbalanced to reach modern listeners who would look at it like an educated man looks at good but not great abstract piece of art – with straight face but with no understanding. His intellectualism would be evoked while the album lasts and would be done with the last sound of the last track. Nothing more.
Tracklist:
01. Das Wodkalied
02. Rendez-Vous Dans Un Bois
03. Wait And Search
04. Zz Walhalla
05. Destiny
06. I'm Food For You
07. Voce
08. Satellite
09. Spinnen
10. Senza Titolo
