Al Karpenter

Al Karpenter

Greatest Heads

Night School

Greatest Heads is the fourth album by the radical Basque- Berlinesque group Al Karpenter. A deconstruction of structured “rock” music, here Al Karpenter re-imagine “the band” to explore the intersection between Free music, afro-beat, the avant garde and gonzo rock.If Theodore Adorno wrote “To Write Poetry after Auschwitz is Barbaric” in 1949, Al Karpenter attempts to answer the difficult question today; what kind of music can be done in the face of a genocide? Álvaro Matilla, Marta Sainz, Enrique Zaccagnini & Mattin’s response to the planet’s slipping into a vortex of hate is to create a music ecstatic, a music of protest bursting with multiple musical languages and glossaries, full of overlapping histories and thrilling tensions.Greatest Heads posits a plurality of musics both in opposition and intertwined: Al Karpenter play rock instruments pulled apart in the studio in post-production. Distorted rhythm chunks bit-crushed and dissipated, segments of freedom oppressed by waves of sound invading from every direction. The interplay between the chief instrumentalists and renowned, storied sound artist Mattin creates something akin to ESP freedom-seekers Cro Magnon playing in Miles Davis’ early 70s groups, The Los Angeles Free Music Society tightening up into a clenched fist of plunderphonics and runaway percussion."We Are All Karpenters" opens Greatest Heads with the most straight-forward song refrain of the record accompanied by a band that soon crash into eruption, imagining Sun City Girls in full free rock mode. The modulating synth sound soon sucks the band into its wake to create a spine-chilling climax...

Al Karpenter

The Forthcoming

Ever / Never

***On their third album, Al Karpenter merges its singular vision with a host of collaborators. In synchronicity with a recent CIA Debutante team-up, the Berlin-based group rises to the challenge of expanding its parameters. As Al Karpenter’s resident theoretician Mattin explains, “The last record was a result of the pandemic, introverted and low energy. The Forthcoming is a result of the possibilities of making music and touring again. We had such an amazing time on tour with Sunik Kim, Dominic Coles and Triple Negative, that at the end of our concert at Cafe Oto, we all played together.” Whether delving into manic plunderphonics with Sunik Kim on “A Brand New Brontophobia” [an intense fear of extremely loud, natural noises in the environment - dict. ed.] or accessing the hidden burrows that tunnel beneath polite society with anarchic rock-folk deconstructionists Triple Negative on the title track, Al Karpenter is revolving around its own matrix. “Poison Sun” throws the New York-based Coles into the mix and you feel as if you are seesawing between competing parties, attempting to soak up their atmospheres during each pass through. Mattin again: “The feeling of exuberance, chaos and fragmentation is confronted with the pleasures of collective music making. This record is outwards, full on and complex. Tiktok attention span meets electroacoustic and concrete techniques. This record is of today.” It’s about time—The Forthcoming is here, for ever more.