Paris
Transatlantic (Paris Sept. 2006)
/La Grieta
HERMANA HOSTIA
w.m.o/r/
I've been listening to
/Hermana
Hostia/, a joint venture by
the duo of Mattin and
Josetxo Anitua, in different conditions
and settings, each
time finding a way to better appreciate the
sneering rants and
dyslexic distortions of this bunch of
"songs", recorded by
the protagonists on a computer using free
GNU/Linux software but
sounding to all intents and purposes
like the cheapest
cassette left in a car in a Las Vegas
parking lot at 1:00pm
in mid-August. On the train to Rome,
gazing out at the sad
landscapes of the urban peripheries I
travel across every
morning, La Grieta’s mumbling vocal
impasse represents a
sort of desperate, anti-social commentary
by zombie-like
presences that not even a brutal,
pluri-overdriven
guitar electroshock can revive. And it's a
shame that many people
won't be able decipher the lyrics:
despite my own limited
knowledge of Spanish/Basque idioms,
there are some nice
lines in there, my favourite one being "40
horas a la semana
durante toda una vida pueden ser muy
destructivas" ("40
hours a week a lifetime can be very
destructive" – indeed
it can, my friends, and it doesn’t even
take a lifetime to
realise it). Impregnated with bitter Velvet
Underground-ness,
abraded by gnarled swing (“Porvenir
Desierto” remains
fabulously repugnant) and ending with
macabre exhalations of
feedback poison, /Hermana
Hostia/
("Sister Host", for
those who really need to know) is the
goodbye letter of a
clown who's just lost his job and is about
to self-destruct by
drinking himself to death./–MR/
Touching Extremes (Italy, July
2006 by Massimo Ricci)
LA
GRIETA - Hermana hostia (w.m.o/r)
So you wanna be a rock'n'roll
star? First of all you should learn some sincerity, use your best irony
and deliver yourself from any useless post-production gimmick. After
this, you're only halfway through the brutal in-your-face honesty of
"Hermana hostia", a project by Mattin and Josetxo Anitua that sounds
punkier than punk itself, a raw collection of totally lo-fi songs, most
of which sound like intelligent variations on Velvet Underground's
"Sister Ray"; the only instrumental (the 15-minute title track) is a
no-nonsense calvary of aesthetical conventions moved by disjointed
drumming and feedback-driven hypnosis which will have your nerves
reeling at the end. Apropos of irony, lyrics like "Tu cerebro se
desnuda en busca de viagra" and titles such as "Vivo en un frigorifico"
are enough to love this release; but my overall favourite remains
"Porvenir desierto", a post-atomic radiation slow swing with demented
modified vocals going from a drunkard's rant to alien chipmunks which
makes me laugh heartily every time I play it. Mattin confirms once and
for all his unpredictable attitude, an example of absolute
"I-do-what-I-want" purity that should be followed.
Ruta 66 (Abril
2007, Barcelona)
Diskunion
(Japan)
Bagatellen
(June 2006)
w.m.o/r
25
I noticed there have been several films (most of them apparently pretty bad) titled “La Grieta”, generally translated to English as “The Rift”, name that would seem to be reasonably appropriate for this punkish-sounding group. However, the direct translation is “grin” which, given the cover image and its placement thereon, is more likely. “Hermana Hostia”, however—Sister Wafer? Perhaps I’m missing something—communion-related, maybe? In any case, such mysteries are probably best left unsolved, including exactly who’s in this band. Mattin, presumably, but I’m not at all certain who else or what is the relationship, if any, to Josetxo Grieta wherein personnel are given (Josetxo Anitua, vocals; Inigo Eguillor, percussion and Mattin).
The first three tracks from La Grieta
are each about a minute long,
ultra-grungy, resolutely lo-fi and quite crunchy, with a surprisingly
strong and melodic bass and guitar lines carrying the weight of the
muttering, snarled vocals. Kind of like DNA advanced a quarter century.
Just as you’ve settled in for more of the same, “Porvenir Desierto”
(Future Desert?) appears, all jazzy brushstrokes and enchantingly
plucked and strummed bass and icicle guitar, languidly wallowing in
place for some eight minutes accompanied by some babbling that comes
across as a sarcastic take on beat singing and wears out its welcome
after about 15 seconds, though when it coalesces into a quasi-melody at
the end of the track it’s momentarily cool. “Craso Error” is an
insinuating number that sounds like Nirvana on a good day. The next
five cuts are shortish and in more or less the same zone as the first
trio—catchy, sometimes dub-by bass, erratically pounding drums, lotsa
fuzz and generally good ‘n’ chewy. The title track is something else
again, some 16 minutes of electronics, feedback, semi-regularly tapped
cymbal that begins fairly quietly, gradually building in volume and
harshness until it’s become a smoking, hellish industrial landscape,
all sprung guitar and metallic pounding; nicely done. As always, you
can hear for yourself and it won’t cost you a dime: here.
Posted
by Brian Olewnick on June 25, 2006 05:22 PM
Whatever La Grieta is I don't know. The work is recorded using a GNU/Linux computer but it's not computer music. It's rather punk related, lo-fi affair, with songs in the basque language. Drums, guitars, vocals. Only the title track is a strange affair of speaker hum, feedback and ghosts moving about. It's the odd ball in this collection, but for the more experimental minds, like me, also the best track.
discography
w.m.o/record label
desetxea net label
www.mattin.org