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Review: 'Teardo, Teho and Blixa Bargeld'
'Nerissimo'   

-  Album: 'Nerissimo' -  Label: 'Specula Records'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '29th April 2016'

Our Rating:
This is an album which should be big news in certain circles. Truth be told, it should be big news in far wider circles. It’s not their first work together, but Teho Teardo, having previously collaborated with Mick Harris, Jim Coleman, and Lydia Lunch, not to mention the legendary and seminal JG Thirlwell, as well as having toured with Placebo, should be considered a significant artist in his own right. He’s hooked up again for a third time with Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten fame for this curious and compelling release.

What perhaps renders it most compelling is the way in which it draws on such a broad range of references, both musically and beyond. For example, the cover art references a painting from Hans Holbein the Younger titled ‘The Ambassadors’ (1533), which contains enigmatic references to philosophy, religion, mortality, and illusion, which connect to some of the themes in the album.

It’s all one colossal multilingual intertext. The album’s title is the Italian superlative for black (‘the blackest’). Dark as the music is there’s a lightness and theatricality which lifts the mood considerably.

There’s no clanging steel to be found here, on this incredibly understated set of introspective songs dominated by brooding strings and electronica. There’s sombre woodwind and while by no means abrasive, there’s a deep shade that looms over the album.

‘Hope should be a controlled substance’, Bargeld croons bleakly at one point. But, with the lyrics suing in German, English and Italian (the title song, opens the album in its English version and closes it with the Italian version, bracketing the album like book-ends), it’s not always easy to keep a handle on the lyrics. But the language of sound transcends words alone, and ‘Nerissimo’ is a dark and subtly intense album that can be appreciated regardless of linguistic boundaries.


  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Teardo, Teho and Blixa Bargeld - Nerissimo