Search - Funkstorung :: Grammy Winners

A taste of disconstruction & DR / PHO-KU

K. Vilenchitz | NYC, NY United States | 02/02/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Funkstorung is a lot more than "hip-hop vs. electronica" as referred to in another review. Sheesh! They've really upped the ante in my opinion. This is no "old school vs. new school" commercial trash. Funkstorung is much more easily comparable to the Warp UK duo of Autechre. Autechre is definitely influenced by Hip-Hop but are not about loops and samples. It's more about the dissection of breakbeats, reinventing them, layering and so forth while creating an audio landscape of amazing depths. After a few albums of Auetchre you're impressed, but you know where they're coming from. Funkstorung is a couple of steps to the left and has newer sneakers on. Instead of sly references to their influences, they've made their influences more of a wholehearted part of their music by infusing MC's over some of their glitch-tech-hop beats. Not afraid to make a head nod or inspire a feverish daydream hallucination Funkstorung's vision is pretty fresh. The maxi single has a few versions of one of the Hip-Hop MC laced tracks, Grammy Winners, which adds a nice new look at one of the more commercial-inspired singles. The Designers Republic have also been doing their packaging artwork (as well as for Warp, and Schematic among others). Included on this CD is a full length Quicktime video they've created for '...Winners'. It's done amazingly, seemingly having used Flash vector art to incorporate flowing icons, filtered landscapes, photos of the Funkstorung members, and great uses of typography. A perfect blend of music and motion graphics. Pick this up now!!!"