Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Škrip Inc.
Label: Zavod Maska
Release: 2014
Duration: 18:11
Rating: 4/5
Škrip Inc. can be understood as a continuation of the Škrip Orchestra story. Behind the project are three brave women who come, heart and soul, from alternative rock music circles. You wouldn’t be bored in the company of any one of them for even a second. Škrip Inc. presents, in the most bizarre way imaginable, the great embarrassment of “developed” Western European society, controlled like a puppet by a corporate Big Brother beyond the Atlantic pond. Our big societal detour into the blind part of the intestine! The seeds of everything we’re reaping today are of course to be found in a manipulatively doctored interpretation of the Bible, in that unfortunate process that began slowly more than 2000 years ago.
The music on the album »We Just Do It!« is a blend of minimalist tricks of electronic sound manipulation, caught in repetitive sonic and rhythmic loops, where the vocals of all three women work as recitals, narratives, dictates, with occasional choral chants, and where musical value is cut down to a minimum. Dark and caustic. An experiment like nothing you’ve heard before. So the idea landed on fertile ground. There’s something at this end of the Alps, some source of energy that souls pick up on in a similar way and, as a result, translate into the language of music in a similar way too. The takeaway? Škrip Inc. is a fitting musical backdrop for all you listeners who get a kick out of the sounds of old (!!!) Laibach. The industrial premise on the album »We Just Do It!« is unmistakable.
This musical approach is, of course, inseparably and irreversibly tied to the message itself, which the women deliver on this studio debut with no holds barred, in several languages of the world. Let’s hope, then, that this project, like a bolt from God with a similar artistic vocabulary, keeps breaking taboos in the future and wakes up the foggy mind of the masses. So, the story. We’ve already pointed out the perfectly bizarre musical minimalism: it’s caustically effective and hits straight on. So are the album cover and the design of the lettering for the artist name and album title. The whole packaging (the cover motif) looks like the wrapper of a cheap perfume bottle, but what’s actually carefully packed inside is the monster created by ownership-mania, in other words, modern man. In the logo you’ll recognize the names of the world’s leading corporations, which supply us with stuff and (seemingly) offer us security and comfort. Of course, this modern-day liberation through grabbing stuff (for those few seconds of fleeting happiness) leads to a life in chains, but before you realize it, you’ve already sold your soul to the devil. And that soul is enslaved to an ego trip that seeks validation, a moment of great fame. At any cost. From counting likes on any random FaceBook profile to wars, killing, betrayals, in short the most disgusting acts a human being can produce. For years now we’ve been living in contradiction both with the teachings of the apostles of the Bible and with the provisions of the Slovenian constitution (and the law). But never mind. The main thing is that we’re successful quasi-moralists and that we successfully convince the masses of the necessity of our actions. Consumerism has become the drug of weekend “warriors,” and we can’t survive without it anymore. Nobody stops to think that in ten years they’ll be frail and sick, and that stuff means nothing, just one big problem of how to get rid of it at the end of the road. Material comfort and fame ride hand in hand and fully feed the human ego trip, while you, as an individual, have strayed far, far away from your original mission in life, the one you were given (and which passes all too quickly).
Škrip Inc. aren’t an acrobatically virtuosic musical body, and they don’t need to be for a message this rich to land. But they offer outstanding wake-up value. It may just jolt colorless conformists out of the life scams that enslave them without their knowing (whether willingly or not). Once their eyes are open, they’ll figure out what true beauty and the real value of life are. Škrip Inc. is a music-theater performance, so music and theater work hand in hand. For the message to touch you in full, you have to catch this project in its stage shows. Wake up!
Lineup
Jelena Rusjan – vocals
Kristina Gorovska – vocals
Tina Perič – vocals
Production
Matija Dolenc
Tracklist
1. Welcome Song
2. OberLaibach
3. Tako se to radi kod nas
4. Človek zasluži si me
