(June 2010) Austrian Electunes has been in the electronic ring since 2006. The label has moved across a number of electronic sounds, from their diverse Electrounique Volumes, which range from New Wave, Disco and Electro, to the abstract disco of Dogs of War and the Spatial & Co compilations featuring the likes of Arpadys. The label has continued down this varied course with the latest LP by Mecanica Popular, Baku: 1922.
Mecanica Popular are Luis Delgado and Eugenio Munoz. The duo formed the group in 1980, meeting each other through their work as sound technicians in the RCA Studios in Madrid. Baku: 1922, the title being a reference to the groundbreaking 1922 Baku concert of experimental music in Azerbaijan’s capital. It is within this context of sound pioneering that Baku: 1922 is set. The record, first released in 1987, is the follow up to ¿Que Sucede Con El Tiempo? and marked Mecanica Popular’s last release until recently.
Mecanica Popular take their listener through a disturbing maze of metallic percussion and unsettling sounds. From the eerie den of “Conceptos Basicos” and the factory tones of “Las Marvallas del Manana” the album steers sound down the alleys and avenues of experimentation. The album features revised past material, such as the early ambient tones of “Daguerrotipo.” The tracks across the LP twist and turn in different directions, from abrasive industrial clangs to strange vocal interactions. Rumbling pistons and synthesizer tweaks map some of the first movements in electronic abstraction. The music shifts from rhythmic familiarity into the darker recesses of experimental sound, harking up comparisons to fledgling releases on labels such as Touch. The Iberian duo chop and restart melodies. Musical perceptions are played with and broken, such as in the title track “Baku: 1922” where synthesizer chords are shattered midway by mechanical shudders and steel gulps. The LP comes to a close in similar fashion to its predecessors. The sounds of mass production are linked with claustrophobic atmospheres to produce a nightmare scape of industrialisation, at a time when computer age waits in the wings unbeknownst.
Baku: 1922 celebrates the less than known concert of early Soviet Azerbaijan. In many ways, the title is not only remembering the influential experimental performance, it is shedding light on the darkening Soviet invasion of Baku in 1920; an invasion that effectively lead to 70 years of Moscow rule. The album, with its harsh tones of mechanisation, reflects the sounds of 1922, and those of 1920. Mecanica Popular commemorate the musical pioneers of 1922 and the victims of 1920. In a work that is retrospective and amazingly precognitive the Spanish technicians have produced a disparate sound that mirrors a divided history of Azerbaijan.
Baku: 1922 is out now on Electunes.
