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Banshee -
Any of the three Strategies Against Architecture comps are the best places to start.
The first is very noisy, it's the earliest material, with the least conventionally 'listenable' tracks and hooks. Still good, but expect little more than sparsely organized bits of metal being scraped against each other. Other than Kollaps most of the releases from which this material is taken are pretty hard to get, perhaps to be remedied by the new website. Many were cassette-only and have been unavailable for a long time. I don't recommend this as the place to begin, mostly because it represents something different from what most of the band's output (or at least their available output) is like. But if you go for chronology, start here.
The second, a two-disc set (as is the third) may well be the best place to begin, as klint said. It's a good mix of noise and song, with many a live cut and alternate version to keep you from feeling duped when you want to go out and get the albums from which all this material is culled. Those albums (Halber Mensch, Drawings of Patient O.T., Five on the Open-Ended Richter Scale and Haus Der Luege) tend to go in and out of print and I'm not sure if they're available right now. But this is very "mid-period" and does a very good job representing EN's shift from pure noise to highly skilled songcraft. Of all the records represented on SAAII, I find myself listening to Richter Scale most often.
The third set is a great package, better than II if you've got the records released in the period SAAIII covers. It's full of unreleased, live and very difficult to find tracks. The material here is less obviously noisy than you'll find on I or II, but most of the songs are still built from traditionally non-musical sources, making III a clockwork orange of sorts. The tracks here are longer and far more rhythmic than on the other two collections, representing a Boredoms-like shift away from interruptive percussion towards the arena of rhythm. I like this set a lot, but I do like Tabula Rasa and Silence Is Sexy as much as older records. This collection also covers a period in which the group went through a few lineup changes, resulting in a shift in the band dynamic, notably bringing vocalist Bliza Bargeld's contributions to the fore. Accordingly, there's more emphasis on the vocals, with a strong sense of play and experimentation in the recording/arrangements of voice, continuing the groups basic intention. It's good stuff and worth a look. |
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