Artist: Balanescu Quartet, The
Label: Mute Records
Release: 1992
Rating: 4.2/5
Possessed by The Balanescu Quartet is an album of classical reworkings of some well-known pieces from rock and pop. The four-piece mostly dedicate themselves to the German electronic legends Kraftwerk, with one track going to the oddball David Byrne. The record also contains three original classical pieces, which are just as full of goodies and pleasant surprises.
The first part of the album gives us 5 excellent covers of compositions by the legendary German electronic outfit Kraftwerk. The arrangements are truly masterful reworkings for string quartet and capture practically every nuance of the originals. Alexander Balanaescu went for songs from Kraftwerk’s most popular period. From the album The Man Machine he picked Robots and Model, which practically every music lover knows. From the album Computer World he took Computer Love and the cult classic Pocket Calculator. For a change of pace there’s the epic Autobahn, from the band’s progressive era, though Clare Connors (the arranger of the covers) reworked it into a considerably shorter version.
If the Kraftwerk covers already showed an unusual choice for classical music, what follows is a bit more conventional, since Alexander Balanescu also presents three of his own compositions. I have to admit that the covers grabbed me first, but in the end it turned out that Balanescu and his original music impressed me the most. It’s full of emotion, twists and turns, and the occasional burst of rock energy (especially when the percussion kicks in). In short, you can feel some real energy here, and the mix of classical and rock add-ons is simply superb.
So The Balanescu Quartet set out to make a covers album, but in the end the covers, excellent as they are, turn out to be the weakest link on the record, because Balanescu is such a good composer that he managed to overshadow even the legendary Kraftwerk. At the end of the album we also get a cover of a David Byrne song, titled Hanging Upside Down (from the album Uh-Oh). That one is a nice touch too, but in the wake of Balanescu’s own pieces it didn’t convince me as much.
There aren’t many albums like this. A classical record with rock accents. The music is, of course, played at the highest level. On the covers, each instrument naturally has a specific job. With Kraftwerk, every string instrument has to stand in for a certain synth line, and with Byrne the guitar and vocals get replaced too.
Possessed is a first-rate record, with roughly half of the album given over to covers and the other half made up of originals. It’s a classical album, but one with plenty of rock traits, and not only in the covers. The musicians really do play like they’re possessed and breathe new life into the covers. The polish is even more impressive on Alexander Balanescu’s compositions, which actually outshine the reworkings of Kraftwerk and David Byrne.
Lineup
Alexander Balanescu – violin, vocals (5)
Clare Connors – violin
Caroline Dale – cello
Bill Hawkes – viola
Guests: Miranda Sex Garden – vocals (7), Steve Arguelles – drums and percussion (6, 7)
Production
The Balanescu Quartet
Tracklist
1. Robots (8:39)
2. Model (3:42)
3. Autobahn (6:18)
4. Computer Love (6:16)
5. Pocket Calculator (3:45)
6. Possessed (16:50)
7. Want Me (7:40)
8. No Time After Time (10:56)
9. Hanging Upside-Down (4:55)
