Konstruktivists — Last Moments Of 1923
Konstruktivists were formed in 1982 by Glenn Michael Wallis, with later members taking in Lawrence Burton, Joseph Ahmed, R. Alcapone Shiells and Mark Crumby. The project was initially started out of the ashes of Heute, a krautrock-influenced trio using electronics as well as conventional guitars and bass. Konstruktivists are one of the few industrial projects who have steadily released work since the 1980’s- with their last new releases appearing in 2018. Discogs lists them having around seventy-five full-length releases.
The theme of this release is the end of the Russian Civil War, which lasted from 1917 to 1923- which of course caused a great amount of change & turmoil in the country. The CD runs for fifty-three minutes taking in thirteen tracks- so this exactly the original release without any extra tracks, which really for this type of themed release is the way it should be.
Each of the tracks run between a minute & a half, and nearing eight minutes- and each track is built around woozy, stretched, and semi-melted nationalistic muzak & announcements- with the addition of occasional brooding synth lines, and wavering electronics & subdued noise elements. The sound here is very much off-colour & uneasy industrial ambience, with little of the original junk & noise percussive elements found on other early industrial pioneers work. As a whole it’s a wonderfully unsettling release which revels in its feel of wonk-ness & warped hope- I guess towards the end of the album things turn slightly more harmonic & hopeful, but there’s still an off-ness here.
Each of the thirteen tracks are fairly creative, and mixed in their presentation of mangled samples, synth texturing, and uneasy electronics- so you get a relatively varied ride. I never heard the album when it originally appeared, and listening to it with today’s ears it comes across as fairly distinctive sounding release within the early Industrial scene - so if that’s your bag, and I can very much recommend picking this up.