Kein Babel use turntables, CD players, MD players, live radio and a contemporary computer. Their goal is far from exploiting all technical possibilities that these media offer but rather the shallow handling of their smooth surfaces. Their focus is set on lovely loops, colourful breaks, blind cuts and nonsensical scratchings - no mannerisms allowed!
Kein Babel do not care about achieving something. It is the obstacles that matter, the obstacles that constantly have to be overcome and pushed aside to meet unexpected new ones and battle these again with the recycled rest of the earlier ones. That does not necessarily mean Kein Babel have no control of the musical output but, surely, it must be admitted that things seemingly fall apart at random, lose touch with their roots and vaporize into heavy particles of buried sound. Intensity seems a strong parameter in their live performances. But what is intensity without its brutal opponents? We'd better talk of breathtaking variations on incredible speed and
slothful slowness, of hypermacho strength and inhumane weakness.
Kein Babel hosted the long-running “Garten der Verschlungenen Pfade” monthly event in Berlin’s “nbi”, which ran from August 1998 until August 2000 and published the “Artefakt” magazine. Today their main obligation is DENSE a press agency for experimental music. Their recordings have appeared on the “Garten der Verschlunenen Pfade” compilation (Pfad), on the “Und ab die Post” compilation (Staalplaat) and the “nbi” compilation.
> www.keinbabel.com
> www.dense.de
Appearances:
> CTM.03
