Le Forbici De Manitú: play and remix Lieutenant Murnau (1980-1984) Le Forbici De Manitú: play and remix Lieutenant Murnau (1980-1984) (Earthly Delights - 1999) Lieutenant Murnau may or may not have been an assemblage of enigmatic Italian underground plagiarists/ cut up artists/ recyclers/ experimentalists whose very existence was questionable. Vittore Baroni and Le Forbici De Manitú were requested by Nigel Ayers to play and remix Lieutenant Murnau (1980-1984)... the result is as strange and wildly varied as the entity itself may have been... Perhaps it is best expressed in this statement from Nigel Ayers's Nocturnal Emissions site... "The tribute/anthology about the mysterious Lt. Murnau is finally completed and Le Forbici di Manitú are very proud about what they feel is their most complete musical statement yet. It is as varied, beautiful, and, at times, utterly unbearable as any memorable record worth its reputation. Exotic soundtrack music, expressionist radio dramas, power electronic ballads, wild sampling, grooves and stolen voices, fake funk, barren landscapes, pop debris... you name it, in the 74 minutes of the record you have it." This truly bizarre collection opens with the 17-second snippet U, one of 11 pieces scattered throughout the disc. When properly arranged (just spell it out), they form the 3:50 "Do the Murnau", a catchy bit of pop oddness/social satire. What seems to be early Beatles recordings are shattered into perhaps thousand of shards, then randomly reassembled into The Blue Beetle, a dizzyingly disjointed listen. Semi-industrial touches and general chaos mark Satanasso while next door neighbor Sehnsucht is a (fairly) straight flute-and-piano piece. Screeching frequencies eventually receive a pounding electrorhythm in The Feedback and the Dancer. Whispered adult voices and a child's prattle (all in Italian) emit from Janus Head, ostensibly a "plagiarized version" of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hide" (sic), and are set amidst some nicely morose background textures, occasionally leaning towards spookiness. Abend... Nacht... Morgan repeatedly loops some gutteral two-syllable phrase (and four piano notes). A dubby bass winds through the Journey Into the Wires, which is littered with scattered spoken word samples (in English, about death, sci-fi, music and other converging topics). Alternating currents run through the The Smuggler's Mbdonna to be warped, twisted and otherwise fragmentized and blended. Moody and somewhat musical even, Schloss Norvenich is steered by its steadily thrumming bassline and light percussion on a course through shifting grey tonality. Ut Fona Res is another not-so-crazy piece, though still not exactly "normal" either... semi-symphonic elements serpentine around each other and are adorned with odd electronic effects. Phantom's 1.5 minutes of silence seems particularly incongruous so near to Expestesp's 2 minutes of scrrreeeeching noise, which lies next to The Finances of the Archbaron (7:47), a placidly surrealistsubaquatic- woodwind-and-bubbly-electronics reverie which turns a bit more foreboding near its end. Another cataclysmic eruption explodes with The Last Homo (Death is...), wildly warped warblings waver wickedly... It's bathtime at Sunrise, while Mum hums along to Junior's infantile gurgles. Heavily grungified, Our Daily Bore delves into ragingly dissonant power pop. After the experimental opera sounds of Tabu, one more glimpse of the opening snippet U bookends the confusion. The extensive liner notes provide a Dadaistic sense of whimsy, but not much real info, so I'm still rather perplexed. But for those actively seeking a bit of whimsical perplexion, Le Forbici De Manitú play and remix Lieutenant Murnau (1980-1984) is an excellent place to begin, and most likely conclude, your search... While I can appreciate the surreality, and a few tracks actually are quite interesting to hear, overall it's not my quaff; the highest ranking I can personally muster for this esoteric deconstructionism is a 7.7. Recommended for the more intrepid listener. Addendum: Shortly after the posting of this review, Vittore Baroni responded to clarify some of my misconceptions... "I was really pleased to read your lengthy analysis of our (I admit) rather bizarre endeavour, thanks a lot for taking the time to listen and write! Just a few words to clarify your doubts regarding the existence of Lieutenant Murnau in the early 80s and all the rest we wrote in the booklet: IT IS ALL TRUE, believe me, and if you are familiar with lists of 80's European industrial-experimental records-tapes rarities for sale, you may stumble into some old TRAX or Lt.Murnau titles that have become rather pricey these days. Or just go to a good Internet search engine and type my name "Vittore+Baroni", a lot of info and links will appear (I am 43 now, feeling in my twenties really, and active in art and music related fields since I was 15...). Our Lt.Murnau CD was so diverse and awkward becouse it's really an accumulation of "audio relics" spanning over a decade and meticulously reassembled following a personal mythological scheme (for example, in particular, "The Blue Beetle" is not a "random" reassemblage of Beatles bits, but a precise series of bits lifted from ALL the officially recorded Beatles tracks, in strict chronological order; the voices you hear in "Journey Through the Wires" are from people I interviewed in my long career as a music journalist, e.g. the sci-fi writer Ballard, David Tibet, Steven Stapleton, one of the Residents, Michael Gira, Diamanda Galas, Adi Newton, John Balance, etc; the track "Phantom" is NOT silence, you must turn the volume ALL THE WAY UP to hear it, it's recorded intentionally very very low, then of course be careful to turn the volume down again before the next track begins or your speakers will explode!! and yes, in "Sunrise" that's me singing in the bathtube with my new born son, not "mum"...). Well, good luck with your activities and projects, ciao, Vittore" This review posted December 28, 1999 AmbiEntrance © 1999-97 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).