STEINZEIT (1992) a quick thought-review

For a while I always "labelled" the STEINZEIT album as F.M. Einheit's second solo album. It was not until a subsequent album from "Stein" (the band) that I realized that "Stein" here was in fact a band, and not in relation to F.M.'s debut solo album "Stein" (confused yet?). I decided to review this little release before the first F.M. solo album "Stein" because this is "Stein" (the band) 's debut album. Confused yet?

I first heard this record upon it's release (or maybe around 1993-1994) and I was highly impressed by the general non-musical or rather non-industrial/musical approach to the compositions. Yes there are a couple of "songs", and in most case, you can easily make out a "structure", but these are by no means easy radio-friendly jingles that your 19 year old "auntie" co-worker could get behind. If anything, Steinzeit sounds partially like a sound/noise exorcism, partially like a nightmare, and most deffinately like some kind of art performance and soundtrack album.

It came at a time when I was veering away (slowly) from the typical industrial of the time (Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" was pretty much the final straw) and instead I found more interest in both the techno and the noise-drone-experimental "scènes". I did keep an eye out for Einstuerzende Neubauten material because for me they weren't stereotypical industrial, but much more experimental in their... well their experiments!

Perhaps the most representative of the entire album would be the introductory piece "Für Elfriede" which starts off with a bang and keeps you clinging on until the second movement "Claws", which borrows almost completely from an old Hammer Films soundtrack of a Christopher Lee Dracula film. It was in fact by sheer accident years later that I listened to a Hammers Films soundtrack album and discovered that "CLaws" was almost a complete reproduction of one of the pièces off the soundtrack.

Most of the pièces from the album mix percussive industrial sensibilities with a horror film atmosphere, something which actually works at a great effect, but may proove slightly old school and cliche in today's world of over-sampling for the same of not having the imagination of... ah, no, I won't ramble on about the state of modern music for the moment.

Anomally number one comes in the form of a Nina Simone cover song of a Kurt Weil piece called "Mr Smith", which is a very simple and stripped-down version which obviously does not fit in with the general thematic of what the rest of the album was (so far), but also doesn't feel out of place either. The second anomally comes later during the long final piece "Anna Fierling Gennant Courage" in the segment which I think may be "Wenn Solche Schneewind Wehen", but I can not confirm this as all the segments are glued together as one piece. This one feels much like "Mr Smith" although it is a shorter rendition lasting about a minute or so before we are brought back into the world of clanging stones and rattling metallic objects...

In general, "Steinzeit" may be judged as a dated album, something which when viewed Under the scrutiny of the modern age may not be up to the standards of the cleaner-than-thou digital recordings of today, and even the compositions may sound primitive compared to the works of laptop musicians. But "Steinzeit" is a unique album which is worthwhile in its uniqueness and should be taken out once in a while to be reminded that there was a time, not that long ago, when artists were still left to their own devices without too much studio meddling, and could come up with something completelly off the beaten path. Needless to say I highly recommend it!