Kevin Hufnagel — Kleines Biest

Handmade Birds presents Kleines Biest a full-length cassette by Kevin Hufnagel. Hufnagel is a long-running American guitarist, known for his solo output, as well as membership in Dysrhythmia, Byla, Sabbath Assembly, Vaura, and the most recent incarnation of the legendary death metal outfit: Gorguts. Truth be told, I’m most familiar with his musicianship in Gorguts. That said, Kleines Biest is a far cry from death metal.

Guitar-based, experimental music is real hit or miss for me. Call me strange, but I tend to get more jazzed seeing someone crudely shaking a contact mic and smashing pedals. It’s not that I don’t appreciate guitar-based outsider music, but I’ve had my fill of going to shows and seeing a performer drift into la la land wanking on their guitar with an ebow. Lucky for me, Kleines Biest is quite good.

Hufnagel offers 11 shortish pieces of varying styles, ranging for heavily processed and glitched out sounds to psychedelic rock stylings. The album begins with the eastern-flavored “Not an Accident,” which sounds almost Sitar-esque, but heavily chopped up and glitched out . Next we have the title track “Kleines Biest” (which also happens to be my favorite), which can best be described as the soundtrack to Castlevania performed in an opium den...trust me. Of course there are more straightforward instrumental tracks, such as “Suìton” which pairs folkish guitar plucking with drifting guitar rock noodling. Lots of sounds to digest and something to be found for everyone.

While ordinarily instrumental guitar music isn’t my particularly my cup of tea, Kleines Biest definitely held my interest. It’s not quite Gorguts (or even in the same realm), but is quite pleasing in it’s out right..if approached with an open mind.