Widerhall is a collection of live recordings from a 2010 U.S. tour. The cover photo seems ironic; shouldn’t the backpack crowd be making this sort of music? Instead, the teenagers stand, enraptured: Dude, the old guy is cool! That’s Christoph Hess, by the way – a Swiss turntable manipulator whose stage name references the use of “anachronistic machines, stuff thrown away by others”. His live events are a feast of manipulated vinyl and needle substitutes. The home listening experience is entirely different, and can be summed up in two unexpected words: windshield wipers.
Yes, Widerhall is a windshield wiper album. The rockings back and forth, the metallic drag and clunk, possess a nearly identical timbre, a lulling sound that also warns one to pay attention, as these roads are slippery when wet. Occasionally, the wipers increase in speed before returning to their original pace; driving through a sonic squall requires additional vigilance. The turntable is, after all, its own little vehicle, and a collection of turntables is like a group of tires. If one is listening at home, one cannot see the miscellaneous items being dropped, the slabs being switched, the rubber bands stretched across the metal; but one can imagine the clouds, the puddles, the debris on the road: a friendly toot in a spring shower (Track 2), an ice cream truck passing by (3), a helicopter evacuation, turbines blaring (4), a traffic jam (6). The end of the opening track sounds like a signal switch, the middle of the fifth is like the honk of an approaching 18-wheeler, the 16 1/2 minute mark of the seventh like a series of warning bells.
As the album progresses, the proceedings grow increasingly strange. The fourth track struggles like a jammed belt drive, producing a sound like a horse’s whinny crossed with a sandstorm. The seventh begins with snoring, introduces drum and bass repetitions, adds touches of guitar, and culminates in a series of effects that sound like cows, pigs and roosters on LSD. And then – always, although perhaps not reassuringly – it’s back to the windshield wipers, as if to say, wash it all away, wash it all away. But this isn’t something to be washed away – it’s a curious recording, a rabbit hole of sound. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 