Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Laube - S/T [Small Doses - 2014]

Laube is the slowest band I have ever listened to.  This 2xCD compilation, released in 2014 on Small Doses, includes two of their previous albums. 

Their music progresses at such a maddeningly miniscule pace that it could be likened to viewing the progress of a snail or the growing of a fungus.  With muffled electric keyboards and dusty drumset as their primary elements, they create a thoroughly uninviting hopeless desolation in dreary, vaguely sketched minor key tonalities.

Thoroughly contrary to the pacing of any ordinary daily activity, their music is seemingly designed for a wholly other type of attention span, which I must not possess.  Attempting to focus on the sound is aggravating, as there are so few notes, and so much silence between them, that there's just not enough for my brain to do. 

A depressive, sluggish stupor seems to have captured the band, and in a pernament capacity.  It recalls an opiate junkie who has long since forgotten the thought of leaving his chair.  It's about as entertaining as watching the corpse of a newly dead animal as the insects slowly gather, or the the congregation of crows in a ghost town.

I've heard slow doom metal records, certainly, but those possessed a degree of menace and distortion not found on this dejected, sucking vortex of lethargy, draining away movement and happiness, seeming to impede all movement with the sheer thickness of its slowness. It is a muted minor key affair without a trace of distortion or aggression that mirrors the soft, inanimate cycles of lifeless places.

Perhaps this is closer to the music I've called 'slowcore', but this is slower still even than that, and lacking in any kind of overtly melancholic vocal work.  It could be compared as well to that famous classical minimalist Morton Feldman, whose work I've always found similarly impossible to listen to.  I can follow the tonalities of Laube's music a little better than in the case of Feldman, which always sounded emotionally void, mechanical and even random to me, but in the end, the music is no more satisfying, as it seems bring the listener to a hopeless, infuriatingly uneventful place without a providing a useful context to doing so.

The two albums included in this 2xCD compilation, entitled simply "Laube", are 2009's "Ausmerzen" and 2013's "Schwach Gekerbt".  There isn't any stylistic difference to speak of between the two records; both contain in equal parts the elements described above.

I would only recommend this set to somebody who is searching for the slowest music ever created, and even then, one must note that this album contains no heaviness, distortion, or badassery.  The band displays a high level of restraint and coordination to play organized compositions at this glacial speed, but ultimately I question whether the result could produce any enjoyment or useful food for thought.  The notes chosen cohere into little more than a vague hopelessness, begetting only itself; the end of a long dead end road.

Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5Rating: 2 out of 5

Josh Landry
Latest Reviews

Laube - S/T
Laube is the slowest band I have ever listened to.  This 2xCD compilation, released in 2014 on Small Doses, includes two of their previous albums. 
290324   Piranha - Piranha(DVD)
280324   Typhoon Club - Typhoon Club(B...
270324   Jerzy Skolimowski Collection ...
260324   Latex Choker - Sealed
260324   Occlusion - 59: No Input Wall
260324   Nihil Impvlse - Anabasis
260324   Marta Forsberg - Sjunger För...
260324   The New Boy - The New Boy( Th...
250324   The Stargazer’s Assistant - ...
250324   Liza Lim - Annunciation Trip...
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom