Schräge Musik — Fleischmaschine

Fleischmaschine is the 2014 full length debut release from Schräge Musik, which is one of the recent project of respected  British industrial/experimental artists Patrick Leagas-  who was a major part of the early Death In June line-up, and went onto to some great genre shifting work with his 6 Comm project.

Following his work with 6 Comm, Schräge Musik is once again very difficult to tie down into any one sonic genre, as its mixes together a host of elements. The album is a sonic canvas of shifting pace &  mood- moving from martial drums & chopping horn work, through to dramatic spoken word over orchestration sound tracking, onto weaves of war plane sounds & war time radio chatter.  Through to latter day like Scott Walker like wailings, over a mournful yet sadly flamboyant  mix of slightly wonky vibe & strumming sting textures, and dramatic production. Onto mixes of hacking/ galloping drum work, military horn samples, brooding soundtrack, and Leagas semi spoken & highly dramatic vocals. Through to darkly show-time  mixes of mournful harmonica see-saw, and Leagas mocking sing-song vocalising. Onto slowly morphing & melting maps of war field chanting, unsettling ambience, & stretched war machine sounds.  Onto more sinisterly bombastic updates of early DIJ sound, mixed with  dips into mournful horn wails & unsettling electronica dramatics.

Fitting the albums title( meaning ‘Meat Machine’ in English),  & camouflage/ military figures silhouettes that make up the artwork- this album focuses in on the suffering of WW2 soldiers , to create a very troubling, yet layered & shifting album. It’s been around seven or so years since I’ve last heard anything of Mr Leagas, so I’m happy to report that Fleischmaschine is another very worthy (and thought provoking) addition to his impressive back-catalogue, and let’s hope there is some more Schräge Musik work in the pipeline.