Moment

Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release. German electronic originator Gudrun Gut's solo collection distills a lifetime of persuasions and obsessions into a compelling 14-track statement: "Moment." Stark, somber, sultry, and clever, the sides slide between ballad and lament, synth-pop and spoken word, anthemic and abstract. Gut's background as a key figure in Berlin's first-wave industrial uprising still casts an aura in the music's mechanized rhythms and frozen emotional palette but decades of improvisation and collaboration have deepened her sense of composition and melody beyond any easy genre categorization. If anything "Moment" finds Gut's muse at it's most enigmatic, threading shades of motorik hypnosis, technoid laboratory, coldwave pop, glitchy gauze, and even a gender-bent Bowie cover ("Boys Keep Swinging") into it's eclectic web. It also showcases the depth and detail of her voice, reserved but suggestive, intoning blunt truths and opaque poetry in both German and English.