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Exploration or Exploitation? A Review of Ssab Songs

Slanted and Recanted | Plainsboro, New Jersey | 08/07/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Collage 2: "Ssab Songs"



Artist: Ssab Songs (Harmony Korine and Brian Degraw)

Album/Song: Ssab Songs



Harmony Korine is the writer of the film "Kids" and "Ken Park." He's the writer/director of "Gummo" and "Julian Donkey-Boy." He's collaborated with artist Christopher Wool to make the art book "Pass the Bitch Chicken." He wrote the experimental novel "A Crack Up at the Race Riots." All of his projects have a very backwoods and rural sentiment to them and this album is no different. To be honest, I find that this album suffers a little from the pretentiousness of their creator. There is a long gap in the center of the recording and a thematic shift afterwards but there was no track division.

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It is easily the most challenging and violent of all of the collages that I'll be sending, but I find that it's a little difficult to listen to because there isn't that trust of the musician that they know what they're doing. Besides, it's a little hard to listen to because of the harshness of the samples. Also, there is the ever-present doubt in all of Harmony's work that you're not sure if he's making fun of rural, backwoods people or identifying with them. That might just be me because I don't think I could like another intellectual project making fun of poor Midwesterners. Since he has never made another recording and this is only 30 minutes long, I have a feeling that this was just a quickie exploitation project that he pushed out after the popularity of "Kids" and "Gummo."

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Experimental

wasabrah | United States | 06/03/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This band is made up of Brain Degraw and Harmony Korine, who is a famous indie filmaker. (Gummo, Julien Donkey Boy, Kids) The music sounds as experimental as his films, and there is a strong tribal krautrock influence. Pretty good, but not exactly easy listening."

Ssab songs

derf | My living room, Maui HI | 12/16/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"wow... dark, atmospheric. it's pretty creepy in a very backwoods sort of way. the way i've been describing it is "somewhere between 'revolution 9' and 'deliverance'". the only problem it has, and it is a big one, is that it is only a half an hour long! maybe they thought people might not be able to take anymore. i would have taken a lot more."