Skönhet — The Girl Who Stole The Eiffel Tower

This Swedish based HNW act have two things that are decidedly un-extreme & unexpected about them; firstly the projects name skönhet means beauty in English. And secondly the project is obsessed with the much loved English & Hollywood  actress from the 1950’s & 60’s  Audrey Hepburn, with this release featuring samples from her films as well as pictures of the actress herself. Harsh noise & Hollywood beauty odd bedfellows indeed, but some how it works.

‘The Girl Who Stole The Eifel Tower’ is Skönhet second release & on offer here is a c40 tape with a single track on either side of the tape. Side one is filled with a track entitled ‘….absolutely Ape!’ the track opens with a few minutes of dialogue sample from one of Hepburn's film. The dialogue is about Hepburn’s character living in Paris &  after she says the words “Absolutely ape” we drop into a nice tight &  bizarrely almost slowly groovy wall of noise. The main tone in the track is this thick muffled drilling drone which it’s slowly danced around  by these slower lower stuck jitter tone that are semi harmonic and  have this almost stuck groove about them. One can almost imagine  slowed down stock footage from the 1950’s & 60’s of dapper looking men & graceful women waltz around a dance floor- not what you’d expect from a extreme noise release but it somehow really works. Anyway the track as a whole is very appealing & moorish in its wall make-up & it bizarrely mangers to be graceful & strangely elegant as well as been seering & ear drum popping too.

Side two’s track  is entitled ‘…goodnight’ and  it starts once again with another sample from a Hepburn film; this time it finds Ms Hepburn in quite an emotional state confronting a killer then bizarrely she goes off to bed quite  a happy mood with the wall starting after she says “Goodnight”. This wall is a lot faster & ripping in it’s feel than the first side- as it gallops along sounding like a mix between a thundering horse race  & a motor bike on low but sped-up refs; both are covered in a thick static film of sound. There’s none of the groovy or elegance of the first track here but I really like the urgent feel of the track as it gallops & manic rips on & on. It’s not quite as distinctive as the first sides wall, but never the less it’s enjoyable & gets quite hypnotic too.

So ‘The Girl Who Stole The Eifel Tower’ offers up two enjoyable & quite original takes on the HWN genre with the first side been the real keeper, but side two is non too shabby either.