Strotter Inst. - Anna | annA 7" / Digital Download

Using five, old manipulated Lenco turntables and various cut or taped records and found objects, Switzerland's Strotter Inst. (aka Christoph Hess) creates polymorph sound and rhythm structures. The tracks on "Anna/Anna" are more atmospheric than past works and at times resemble field recordings of "lurching" frogs. The listener is met with a single black 7" record(with no labels) in a clear sleeve. Once the record has been removed, the artwork and liner notes(which double as a map to instruct the listener on how to play the record) are revealed and can only be read though the clear sleeve. The tracks (two per side) play inside out and outside in ending in the center of the record in the same locked groove.

"Using five old utilitarian Lenco turntables from Europe, he transmogrifies the doldrums of the factory into a beautiful butterly mirror image, reshaping their bourgie stodginess into exotic sqeaks and creaks. Similar to the sound poetry power in the raw and infatile repitition of words, the 7" is so full of vitality, it fairly jumps off the spindle itself." -Signal To Noise

"It is no easy thing to take apart inside your head. A combination of glitches and long cool drinks of sound, the music here is like gargling brine, which is probably pretty fun if you're in the mood." -The Wire

"Whoa daddy -- this is strange and mesmerizing stuff, presented in a severely cryptic fashion. The tracks themselves are great -- springy drones with lots of low end and plenty of drone 'n hum -- and the packaging concept (courtesy of Hess, who, like many artists who are also musicians, has an obsession with tinkering with the physical playing format) is definitely striking and unusual." -Dead Angel

"Engaging stuff, in league with Philip Jeck and his ilk, with somewhat dramatic passages eventually brought to very pregnant pauses in the middles."  -Dusted Magazine

"It's a bit like the poem 'Anna Blume' by Kurt Schwitters, 'a n n a' can be read from the back as well. The four pieces are quite short, around three minutes each, and consisting of rotating loops that make intense patterns, especially on 'Na' (of the a-side). Think Philip Jeck, think Institut Fuer Feinmotorik, and you'll get the loop."  -Vital Weekly

A1: An
A2: na (MP3)
B1: an
B2: nA

Strotter Inst. is Christoph Hess

Release date: July 25, 2006

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