Something new once again from Tax Free Records, arguably Berlin’s boldest label. Run by a loose collective orbiting artists such as Max Graef, Jürgen Ratan, Funkycan and other allies — some of whom also play in bands like 2Morph — the imprint refuses all genre boundaries. Experimental, jazz, dub, digi-metal, tribal electronics, folk, psychedelic rock, G-funk, pop — at Tax Free, genres are truly free. There’s always a fondness for obscure melodies and slightly tipsy grooves in the air. The same goes for GUU, the label’s latest Berlin-born creation. Rumour has it that locals like Max Graef and Max Stocklosa — also known for his Stroom releases as TRjj — were involved. What’s certain is that everything was recorded in the north of the city, with feeling and freedom, unburdened by style conventions.
The tracks are simply numbered one to eleven, mostly one or two minutes long, two stretching to three, one to five. Duration is no yardstick here: each idea is pursued only as long as it needs to reach its core — spontaneous, stimulating, unpretentious. An album that in parts recalls Tom Waits’s seminal Bone Machine and would sit comfortably in the Finders Keepers bin — that place where jazz meets the avant-garde, minimal music brushes against world music, and library sounds greet the downtempo dancefloor.
Multirhythmic harmonies from Wedding, freely improvised with percussion, woodwinds and strings. Each edition comes in variable vinyl speeds and with individual, hand-crafted label design. Tax free, of course.
Guu
