Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Nitro Mahalia
Label: Interstellar Records
Release: 2010
Length: 40:28
Rating: 4.5/5
Nitro Mahalia are a musical collective, activists and above all total sonic nonconformists. You can’t stuff them into the crowded camp of electronic types, rockers and other one-note music purists. They’re unknown, but it’s exactly that safe, non-profit shelter of total anonymity that gives them full steam to blow past cliched norms, the kind they’d be stuck in like prisoners of the big label corporations, simply by the definition of label serfdom. The story of a total sonic experiment has been unfolding since 2004, and under the curious name Nitro Mahalia a juicy, post-punk funky dub, a chaotic musical language, has been woven since day one, where under a DIY surface the cold electronics of sound synthesizers get hitched to the organic sound of lung-powered jazz-core winds. The record I’ve got on the dissecting table this time landed in my hands by chance, and that happy accident deserves all the thanks, because it lets me suggest, in no uncertain terms, that you treat yourself to something tasty, rough around the edges and a lot more than just experimentally digestible.
Nitro Mahalia are a nest and a wide-spectrum musical palette of darkness and untamable, erupting passion, where the rhythmic loom is so wildly solid that even the most seemingly incompatible steel threads can be hung on it. Proof is the opening track Killer Farce, which recalls the primal scream of our local 2.2.2.7. and the dub elite now truly sworn to the light, Moveknowledgement. Add a pinch of Balkan Beat Box, Kultur Shock and the taste for overkill you picked up with Demolition Group, and you get the Austrian version of how to conquer club innards at home and abroad. Nitro Mahalia feed on Frank Zappa’s bran, the percussion section drinks the cerebral juices of Skeleton Keys, and despite the subversive references this screaming brat is listener-friendly and at moments even gets poppy and tuneful. Beauty Of A Sports Car Crash is a brilliant dance tangle of synth play and electronic building blocks, and the fact that there’s always enough room for additions and a sonic renaissance within the rigid band shelter is proven by a colorful selection of guests who put the cherry on top. First to step up to the mic is Gustav singer Eva Jantschitsch, her oratorio of a delicate voice distorted, as if coming out of a blown-out speaker, and tastefully complementing the weave of drums, bass and wind section. Roger.over.stop. sounds funkadelic and fit to score an unshot Austrian version of the film Walter Defends Sarajevo, except this time what’s sketched out under the hill are the Prater and other Viennese tourist attractions. On the very next track, Acid D.C., guitarist Chris Janka squares up to the hit-making melancholy with his high-voltage guitar. The jazz meter ramps up with the screaming spell of dirty keyboards and the brass patina of a wild wind section on Knock Knock On The Water, which flows quite naturally into the second half of the record with Codetta, whose energy, and the stampede of Flieg, kleiner Trochäus that seems pumped full of steroids, make up yet another of the many peaks of this rather sinister mental soundtrack. The cover of Wipeout’s Victims gives free rein to the vocal interpretation of the singer of Beauties Of The night, Joy Religion and Satellite Footprintshop, the sensually dark Christian Egger, and the chorus will satisfy every lover of intellectually overstuffed pop, written by the fingers of recent guest Moby. Neon Boredom cranks up the dub finale of this excellent debut, which is deftly capped off by a rainbow of total musical manipulation, punk and total sonic destruction. Dieb13 surrenders to the destructive lust of rhythm and with a mixing table spectrally rounds out the proceedings in a record with a solid pair of steel balls.
If you have doubts, you can listen to most of the debut HERE.
Nitro Mahalia have proven they can shed their skin like chameleons, hopping from one genre to another, without sounding contrived, forced or pushily intellectual. The self-titled debut is a playful, well-calibrated punch in the right direction, and its confused celluloid dreams are dreamed without pretense, fake orgasms or needless cliched shortcuts. That’s also why this record is one of those you should come back to again and again, catch your breath with, and free your soul from the claws of conformist snobbery. Nitro Mahalia are just the right starting point for that kind of intervention, and for the road to total mental recovery!
Line-up
Gregor Mahnert – drums, percussion
Tronestoner – bass, synths, octapad
Elise Mory – piano, organ, synths
Susi Von Hannover – flugelhorn, trumpet, accordion
Guest musicians:
– Eva Jantschitsch (vocals on track #3)
– Chris janka (electric guitar on track #4)
– Christian Egger (vocals on track #9)
– Dieb13 (mixing table and turntables on track #11)
Production
Martin Siewert & Nitro Mahalia
Tracklist
1. Killer Farce
2. Beauty Of A Sports Car Crash
3. Roger.Over.Stop. (feat. Eva Jantscitsch)
4. Acid D.C. (feat. Chris Janka)
5. Knock Knock On The Water
6. Codetta
7. Intro
8. Flieg, kleiner Trochäus!
9. Victims (feat. Christian Egger)
10. Neon Boredom
11. Ideas Are Bulletproof (feat. Dieb13) – live@ Rhiz
