DVD-R/free download, D-trash Records, 2008
www.lunaticfringe.org/~schizoid/dtrashrecords/artists/nwodtlem.html
Musique concrète originally came about in the 1940’s. It was a form of creating music by splicing tape together, and using unusual source recordings (not necessarily voices or instruments). Now bring this form about 60 odd years in to the present, and put the idea into the head of a young man with a taste for breakcore and generally bad movies and this is where you get Nwodtlem.
Nwodtlem basically makes music by twisting and tormenting film into music videos all there very own. With source material ranging from utterly terrible Troma movies (“Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator”) through to Arnold Schwarzenegger action films from the 80s Nwodtlem uses the soundtrack from the films to create the music – it’s like one massive sample and actually quite fun and novel!
“Things that make you go araraaggh” is ten minutes of Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Total Recall’ being beaten up, shouting a lot and nearly imploding on the surface of Mars! Ten minutes is probably a bit long for me, particularly when there are other tracks on the DVD that could have had more made of them. I particularly liked “Isn’t it moronic” – a reworking of a Bryan Adams music video which is entirely puerile and just made me laugh – but then you never expected to be tested intellectually with breakcore did you? What is most entertaining about the DVD is trying to figure out the films Nwodtlem used to create the videos. Some of them I got straight away, but others took me ages to figure out.
“πR8” is a pretty interesting selection and it is good to see something relatively artistic being made with breakcore, as the genre does tend to be a bit silly and not massively creative – but this has proven to me that breakcore can be artsy and silly all at the same time.
[7/10]
— Kate Turgoose