German Army “Literacy in Opium”

09 Aug 2013 — Henning Lahmann

With a bunch of cassette releases, most notably on Night-People, still anonymous Californian project German Army is one of those URL-borne enigmas that seemingly have been around for ages without ever leaving much of a mark in the blogosphere at large, let alone the outside world of trees and birds and lakes and stuff. That this unfortunate fact, though probably intentional anyway, is very much undeserved, should finally be clear after taking a listen to Endless Phonics, the first GA effort that made it onto vinyl. The LP is an affront of sorts, unashamedly playing with long-abandoned tropes of 80s underground, chilling synth textures juxtaposed to motorik beats and more than aloof vocals that reveal an author who obviously doesn't give much of a damn about who might or might not care. It's all very cleverly arranged and without doubt the work of someone who exactly knows what he is up to. Check out album standout "Literacy in Opium" below – a brilliantly twisted sonic assault that however doesn't so much evoke images of approaching panzers than of some overly blasé hipster in a random big city basement, playing in front of a wilfully unimpressed crowd. In a good way that is.

Endless Phonics is out now on Monofonus Press.