Ellen Allien – “Trash Scapes”
Ellen Allien, a German DJ who founded the BPitch Control Label, was always an unlikely mainstay on these electroclash comps, having at least a foot in glitchy, sometimes pleasure-denying IDM. And while her masterful 2003 record Berlinette goes well beyond the electroclash norm, she found a way to make continual disruption into that relentless pop thump on at least a track or two. “Trash Scapes” key lyric: “the past is a late train to unknown trashscapes” is kind of a haunting to me now, given the rocks of pop junk we now know the rest of the 00s were waiting to turn over.
* Also, though I wouldn’t call it stylistically relevant to this discussion, The Cure guitars she snuck onto Berlinette‘s closing track “Open,” bringing that faraway, California-highway-at-dusk feeling, seem wildly influential now. (HOW SAD lil’ Natalie Portman looked in the video!!!)
geez I used to love those club days, listening to this stuff at The District and Revolver in Miami! songs like Mount Sims – “how we do” although I don’t think its considered electroclash… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMCXHP_xqFY
It’s about time for a reunion of The Kenn Firpo Rent Explosion.
A movie about the Firpos is in production.