PXP - while(p){print"."," "x$p++} 7.4

Oswald Berthold’s work in Farmers Manual just couldn’t satisfy his itch of the deeply weird. Here you’re given stuff so absolutely bizarre that the album is copy and pasted spam nonsense and the music doesn’t help you understand anything. Indeed, it is as if his computer was trying to say something before it died.

This is pure digital manufactures. At no point are you reminded of anything approximately a beat or melody. Rather the music floats freely around your ears, referencing nothing but the broken math equations that made it possible.

Rhythms form occasionally, in an attempt to make sense of the chaos. In the third track a beat and rhythm begins to form out of random noise. Slowly but surely, structure reasserts itself. Even the structure is attacked by all sides. 

What’s interesting is the gradual decrease of loud (like the opening track which is nothing but barely treated static noise) into almost hypnotic and near silent “meta” suites which close out the disc. It sounds like the computer freaked out in the beginning only to be talked down from that level of insanity. 

Clearly there is something larger going on in here. Prix Ars Electronica stated: "Here was a jutting mass of digitized disturbance that fueled our direct reckoning with destabilized mathematics. (...) Spam data malformations. Direct waveform bitstream. Seizure. Disengage. Smitten." I couldn’t have said it better myself. They gave it an honorable mention.

Really, this isn’t something you’d want to delve into every day. But with the right mood and proper digital fetish, this hits the spot. There’s something oddly engaging in such random sequences that makes me happy whenever I listen to it. 

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Farmers Manual – No Backup 8.9

I think Farmers Manual embodies the myth of the nerd. The amount of information floating around about these people is ridiculous and not all of it is accurate. Among the more interesting tidbits: they recorded in a disused auto repair shop, they worked in the advertising industry, were influential wiki makers before it was cool, and heavily participated in the Viennese electronic scene in the early nineties.  Due to the conflicting information, I can only confirm the last bit.

Numerous anonymous web junkies were involved in the proceedings, but the main anchors were Mathias Gmachl, Stefan Possert, and Oswald Berthold. Together these three brought much weird music into the world, but I’m going to focus on their first effort, No Backup.

What distinguishes this record from so many other Mego releases is how it merges the normal with the sublimely weird. Usually Mego releases (especially the early ones) were either dance or extremely experimental. No Backup included both, so you could play it for your friend who grew up on Aphex Twin, and he’d know it was different, but would not be able to put his finger on it.

According to the few interviews that existed with this trio, the music’s focus was rhythm, not melody. Upon starting up the disc, you see what they mean. “Macro-Woeb” does consist of a warped sense of time keeping. “Biomagic I” could pass as a dance track, except the infinite ratcheting of suspense and an ever insistent near-melody makes such a thing impossible. The follow up of “Biomagic II” is like listening to the previous track getting dissembled into its most basic elements. 

Most of the music on here has a sense of humor to it, whether it is of the sorts of sounds used or the extremely bizarre references. “Perimeter 87” gives off the impression of a lackadaisical spy with its stuttering guitar-like sounds. But one of my favorite songs on here has to be “Farmers Manual”. It is nothing more than oddly delayed high-hats, which remove any sense of dance. What is interesting is how the background noises are the actual song, and the synthesizer in the background, giving the only hint of progression, is going through a quiet breakdown.  

Farmers Manual are currently on hiatus following their release of every live performance they ever did (the RLA) in 2003. But this is perhaps the easiest way of getting acquainted with their sound. Consider it a Rosetta stone for their later recordings.