Pita
Get Off
(Häpna)
Peter Rehberg has been creating electronic music for some time now under the name Pita. This is his fourth solo album (and the first not released on Mego), and in addition to solo work he has collaborated with everyone from Fennesz (on the great Fenn O'Berg releases) to choreographers Gisele Vienne and Chris Haring. Compared to his previous efforts, Get Off may very well also be the most varied work to date from Pita. Ranging from minimal and sparse to dense and attacking, the effort is everything from ambient to noise, and sometimes a little bit of both.
Culled from various live recordings that took place over the course of two years and then compiled and finalized while in isolation last summer, this is a short album (eight tracks and thirty-five minutes) of electronic music that doesn't provide easy answers. "Eternal" opens the release with just over two minutes of overlapping tones that mixes a piercing high-end with barely-there low swoops that are quite haunting. "Like Watching Shit On A Shelf" is easily one of the more surprising tracks on the release, lulling the listener with two minutes of filtered sine wave and ambient wash before completely exploding into a white-hot blast of textural noise. The explosion not only makes for a sonic shock the first couple times listening to the release, but actually undulates with a squealing intensity that it's almost hypnotizing after a couple minutes (unless you're listening to it at full volume, in which you might damage your hearing).
"Resog 45" again starts out rather quiet before bursting into heavy duty squelches of harsh electronics and noise while "Babel" is even more extreme, sounding like power tools gone on a killing spree as spluttering fits and starts of high tones bang around for two minutes while being chased by punctuations of static. Only the nine-minute album closer of "Retour" backs off from the more harsh explorations, and even the repetitive high ringing tones of the track start to feel almost claustrophobic after such an extended play. Another frustrating thing about the release is that it simply doesn't follow much rhyme or reason. While there are a few surprises in terms of sharp dynamics, tracks just sort of linger about for awhile and the overall flow of the album feels a bit sketchy given the short length.
Although it never ventures into the overwhelmingly realms of artists like Merzbow and other power laptop terrors, Get Off is much more abrasive than anything collaborator labelmate Fennesz has done (although there is a smidge of overlap with the quieter work on this release and some of the more noisy earlier Fennesz work). Also, it's probably the most attacking thing that the usually mild-mannered Häpna label has put out. I've never had a huge need to listen to unstructured power electronics, but if you do, Get Off will probably do it for you.
Rating: 5
