Strap Ons
Lost Found Sound KRK106 CDR 12trks 48min
Recorded over a 3 year period, between mid 1996 & mid 1999, Lost Found Sound covers broad ground, stylistically, without sounding at all awkward or inconsistent. A cool & ironic lounge sensibility pervades the entire album - even as it swings effortlessly between playful, dada-experimentation & thrilling, electro-industrial psychedelia. Furthermore, Don's cut-ups & tape samples are back - this time as carefully selected & implemented embellishments, rather than as primary structures in the music.
If Come Back To My Place… recalled the ethnic kitsch of those strange theme albums released in the 50's & 60's, then Lost Found Sound seems to derive a certain inspiration from early 70's space rock. This atmosphere owes as much to the driving electric guitar & bass lines (performed mainly by Nova & Matt) as to the spaced-out, acid rush of Don's analogue synth. Among the more electronic improvisations on the album are a few pieces which bring to mind classic 1950's science fiction movies, such as Fred M Wilcox's Forbidden Planet.
Although some of these recordings were originally released on kRkRkRk, in cassette form, as Beyond The Valley Of The Strap Ons KRK069 in early 1997, most were created in & around the sessions that would eventually produce the group's two Solarphonic-only rock albums: Pretty Ugly Things & No Time To Be A Work Of Art. Just to confuse matters further, Lost Found Sound was also the name given to a more experimental, improvisational Strap Ons side project that was active in the 1997-99 period. This project featured Don, Nova, Matt & Ben Johnstone &, in early 1998, even spawned a Solarphonic-only rock album: (Get Lost With) The Lost Found Sound.
Although Don, Nova & Matt are common denominators on the Lost Found Sound album we are concerned with here, several other local musos contributed, in various areas, over the extended period of its production. Not surprisingly, no one now remembers, in many cases, who did what. However, this certainly doesn't hurt the music. Distinguished by widespread use of electronic rhythms & keyboard textures, the selections on the album nicely integrate the power & intensity of the punk-rock/R&B side of the Strap Ons whilst setting the stage for the pop-eclecticism to come in the collaborations with kRkRkRk stalwarts J-mz Robinson & Mikel Goodwin.
Hellbox
KRK116 & Bottle KRK115
Eat
the Mess Age KRK108
Come
Back to My Place... KRK105
Early
Fears 1 KRK102 & Early Fears 2 KRK103
Strap
Ons intro
Strap
Ons profile
Listen to Strap Ons
Lost Found
Sound KRK106
kRkRkRk recordings
krkrkrk@hotmail.com
Text by David
Khan. Web-building by Ed Wilson. No apologies for disinformation.
August 2004