Thomas Köner - The Futurist Manifesto [Von 022 Promo]

Released earlier this year on the Italian Von-imprint is Thomas Köner's take on Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's century old publication "The Futurist Manifesto", an audiovisual DVD interpretation and treatment that is described as 'mini-opera for noise orchestra, female singer, prepared piano and erratic video' of which we received the 37 minutes long audio only version on promo CD a week or two ago. And although it's hard to come up with a verdict without the full visualization it becomes pretty clear after only a few minutes that Mr. Köner, long-time contributor to the experimental music scene, has shaped an amazing muscial score, an evolving mass of beautiful drones, dark'ish strings, reverberating piano tones, sparse, super-slow and decent underwater Electronica beats and - most importantly - whispering male vocals reciting what might be lines taken from "The Futurist Manifesto" itself in an intense, yet sometimes even horrifyingly unemotional way whilst random noises possibly created from processed field recordings interfere and a dismal, superincumbent post war, if not even post civilization melancholia builds up, leads us through dust and urban decay, takes us on a slow motion journey under grey to charcoal skies and finally and grievingly buries the sarcophagi of all leaders that once have been without knowing if the future will bring any good or if there will be a future at all. Music for all that are way beyond black despair, sunk into the well fascinating world of monochromatic greys, running on their autopilot of instincts, having lost all including the idea of what hope might be. This for sure is one of the most intense and touching scores we've come across in years and therefore this piece of work is highly recommended, no matter what the visual part of it might look like.