Gudrun Gut

The most exciting thing about genre is that it doesn't exist anymore, and few records prove this more strikingly than Gudrun Gut's I Put a Record On. With a musical career dating back to membership in the early industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten and goth-tinged post-punkers Malaria! in the early '80s, to her more recent collaborative work and leadership of electronic label Monika Enterprise, Ms. Gut's roots are diverse enough that her belated solo debut could have sounded like just about anything—except maybe folk.

Surprisingly, now that the album has finally arrived, one of its many highlights is a Smog cover, "Rock Bottom Riser," that's not shy about employing folk guitar when the time is right. Elsewhere, with the same easy confidence, Gut blends minimal techno, IDM, ambient, and narcotic rock more naturally than anyone in recent memory. Equally impressive are the touches that should come across as gimmicky but don't—like occasional moments of tweaked circus melody, and a crib from "Frère Jacques" that somehow doesn't compromise the tender sexuality of closer, "Tip Tip."

Vocal tracks such as "Pleasuretrain" and "The Wheel" even flirt with trip-hop, but in a gorgeous, vintage-warm production style that's far more sophisticated than the music typical of that genre. And this elevated sound carries throughout the album—at once vital and highly saturated, I Put a Record On truly feels like its been gestating for 25 years.

- Nate Cunningham
04.03.07

Since Gudrun Gut has been a fixture in Germany's experimental and electronic music communities for over three decades -- performing with Malaria! and founding the Ocean Club collective and her Monika label along the way -- it's a little surprising that it took so long for her first solo album to arrive. However, I Put a Record On is well worth the wait, full of impressionistic tone poems about the strange ways that desire, dreams, and memories work. "Move Me" opens the album with a collage of ticking clocks, gasping breaths, shimmering accordions, and shout-outs to Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" that manages to be shadowy, elusive, and urgent all at once. Gut's music nods to Berlin's thriving minimal techno scene (and her friend and Ocean Club collaborator Thomas Fehlmann mixed some of these tracks), but I Put a Record On branches out in unexpected musical and emotional directions. On many electronic-based albums, a cover of Smog's "Rock Bottom Riser" would be unexpected at best, and her dusky, sibilant voice and serpentine melodies lend "Cry Easy" and "Tip Tip" a wry sensuality echoed by the hip-swaying shuffle-tech rhythms of "Girlboogie 6." This track, like most of I Put a Record On, is strange and seductive in equal measures; "Blatterwald" pairs a strutting bassline and swishing beat with a storm of distorted guitars and feedback, while "Last Night" sets impressions of a night out gone awry to synths and jazzy guitars that tickle and pop like champagne fizz. Gut's forays into big band and cabaret make I Put a Record On even more surreally seductive, especially since they're paired with electronic and found sounds that melt together in an evocative blur, as on "The Land," which glides along on a four-on-the-floor beat past looping cellos and bubbly clarinets like a bullet train through the countryside. As the album unwinds, it grows even more abstract, with samples of laughter and nightlife giving "Sweet" and "Pleasuretrain" the feeling of memories you can hear; "The Wheel," I Put a Record On's loveliest and most thoughtful track, sounds like Gut is thinking aloud on a busy summer street. Subtly haunting, this album is a love song to the trancelike state that can happen when you put a record on. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide