Do you like electronic music? Consider yourself an afficianado? Listen, you don’t know shit. Don’t get your Kraftwerk in an uproar. Pick up a copy of Vintage Volts and educate yourself. This is the origin of sampling and sequencing and keyboards and loops and everything that has made hip hop and postmodern - modern dance music possible. Of course, these recordings predate all of that equipment, and even more importantly, I damn my art school teachers for drilling postmodernism theory into my head, because now I’ve actually used the word of my own volition.

Vintage Volts is not dance music. It’s the experimentation that was undertaken with all the seriousness of a Bach or a Beethoven. Alright, maybe not all of it. There has to be a sense of humor in there. Consider a recording made up of bits and pieces of hand cut audio tape assembled and edited in tiny sub-second increments by what were heretofore unhead of methods. Vintage Volts is a compilation of tracks that date from 1939 to 1967. It’s roots music that is all about taking over technology and coercing it into something revolutionary. Like all revolutions, there is a certain amount of beheading and general unpleasantness. It’s not exactly happy road trip music. You’re not going to invite your pals over for cocktails and spin this gem for mood music. If you are, well then, you run with a loftier crowd than I do.

In any case, Vintage Volts is good for anyone who wants to relive an era aural adventure. If you’ve ever spent time as a child carrying around a mono cassette recorder with various recordings of radio static, channel changing, and assorted self-made weird noises, then this is for you. I don’t know who that kid was, I’m sure. Somebody told me about him, that’s all. Even if you can’t dig it, your educated friends will think you’re deeper than you are. Maybe you’ll score with an art school girl. You’ll dance to anything…

High Tech:

www.caipirinha.com

Reviewer: Kilwag