Die Form
Extremum
Metropolis Records

The movie The 5^th Element contains a jaw-dropping scene of a blue, tentacled diva delivering an astounding operatic performance to a weeping auditorium. The place is so moved that even tough guy Bruce Willis is sniveling like a spurned teen on prom night. The mood is such that suspension of disbelief is on full bore and you’re wanting to buy the soundtrack. Until, that is, the techno "un-ch un-ch un-ch" starts in out of nowhere and you go flaccid with an outraged "What the fuck?" Excremum…oops, Freudian slip, Extremum takes that bad idea all the way to the Roxbury with 14 tracks. The basic problem with technophiles is they don’t fully realize the possibilities available with programming. Why set the drum machine to run the same sequence for 48 measures when you have the power to change it by pressing one damn button? The operatic composition, ethereal textures, and spacey layers are all cheapened by the Casio heard-this-before fake drumbeat. With all the production that goes into these things hire a fucking drummer! Bang on some cardboard, do something! It’s most upsetting because some of the ideas Die Form presents are wasted genius. Quasi-medical terminology in an H.R. Geiger biomechanical setting looks great on paper. But the words are either whispered or computerized beyond recognition. The concepts are bizarre enough that coherence has an uphill struggle anyway. Hidden inside the mostly unengaging soundscapes are disturbing nightmares of, "Intracapsular extraction of the clockwork before the implant" from "Deep Inside." Glimpses of brilliance hide behind the mediocre rhythms. The scratchy cepia-toned segments and Kraftwerk blips are undermined by fake beats with no depth.

"Resonant" tries to escape the doldrums but the fake kick is epileptic. Ethereal singing and stretchy electronic jaw harp noises would have been cool. But ravers coming down need the stupid beats to keep the pulse going. Beyond the fantastic cyber-surgical instructions, eerie theramin sounds weave through the computer voices and radio crackle of "Deep Inside." "Glassphyxie" has a lighter Swans exchange between male and female vocals set to annoying ticks fading the speakers. Ein halb auf Deutsch, "Radiomorphism" takes a tribal industrial approach with Devo keys. Creepy movie music organ as electricity brings the monster back to life. An unwelcome blessing is offered, "Long life without tears. Long love without pain." On "Animal Magnetism" Mid-Eastern vocals back Davros, who is supposedly singing. "Facial perturbations were produced by a high-current, high-bandwidth nervous amplifier." Since the vocal line is played backward, who the hell knows? The fast bubbling keyboard is more interesting than the over confident fake Eurythmics drums.

"Operating Theatre" starts to pull it together. The lame beats have been softened, and odd echoey noises rise behind the whispered Ka-spel vocals. Sparse organ taps are surrounded by fuzzy electric buzzing. In the back, madrigal singers augment the creepy guy out front. Then on "Electronic Brainpan" Stephen Hawking sings of, "Morphological distortions and circumferential process with mechanical repetition." A guitar appears as a landmark on the horizon. The significance of the lyrics "Spermicide procedures and pixel injections" may be lost on the German chanteuse delivering them. Haunting and poetic sounds of "Itopsia Atropos" share time with "Popcorn" (yes, by Hot Butter) bleeping. Again, the words are as amazing as they are unintelligible, "Dear lover, accomplish your promise as a doleful, inhuman accident."

Bad transmissions noises of "Neurolepsia" show Stephen Hawking extrapolating on neuro-surgical technique to a Speak & Spell. Your circuit’s dead, is something wrong? "Transgressions" sounds as innocuous as Enigma, yet presents the most tactful way of saying "Bite me and eat shit" known to man, "You can eat my flesh and the fruit of my entrails." You could fall asleep to this one were it not for Rodan squawking at odd intervals. Another clever euphemism is "Oral Therapy for Erectile Dysfunction." If you thought it was a turn-off to hear Ruth Westheimer discussing tonsil hockey, wait ‘til it comes out of Professor Hawking’s mouth. (So to speak) "Transvocal Mutations" features neat plodding sneaking-up-behind-you keyboards and clanging bedsprings. Obscene moaning and fake strings mark "Suffocation." Someone dies at the end, but I’m not going to ruin it.

People who really enjoy the hearing test, raise your right hand. There is enough beeping and phasing here to keep you happy for a week. It could have been really creepy, what with all the vivisection and what not. But they chose instead to make trance come down music for those who can’t get NPR’s Hearts Of Space.

Rating: English

On a scale of one (1) to five (5): one being Hasselfhoff, and five being Neubauten, "Extremum" is two (2) Horkheimer.

Rating: Deutsch

On a scale von ein (1) zum funf (5): ein bist The 5^th Element, und funf seind A 5^th of Old Grandad, "Extremum" bist zwei (2) A 5^th of Beethoven.

~Ewan Wadharmi

Track Listing:

1. Resonant Magnetic Source
2. Deep Inside
3. Glassphyxie
4. Radiomorphism 1+
5. Animal Magnetism
6. Operating Theater
7. Electronic Brainpan
8. Itopsia Atropos
9. Neurolepsia
10. Transgressions 1
11. O.T.E.D. - (Oral Therapy For Erectile Dysfunction)
12. Transvocal Mutations
13. Suffocation
14. Radiomorphism 2