Music box melodies for tykes 'n' scamps can be subversive, if not damn sinister. Duo505's ice cream truck melodies are usually repeated ad nauseam until the guys themselves grow bored and attach a magnet to their machines. This recalls a 1988 Village Voice piece by rock criticism's great over-intellectualizer Greil Marcus. In "Punk Is Where You Find It", Marcus remembers opening an Absolut Vodka ad's insert in a New Yorker and then hearing a tiny music box that would tinkle "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"... for 48 hours. He wrote: "Imagine tens of thousands of undetectable music boxes... all secreted in the crevices of skyscrapers, in the cracks of telephone poles, stuck under bus seats... (behind the presidential seal the next time there's a televised White House news conference)." He concluded, "Imagine 'You Are My Sunshine' and 'When a Man Loves a Woman' turning the whole country into one vast theater for the aural itch of a song you can't get out of your head."
While it's doubtful that Vienna's Duo505 (B. Fleischmann and Herbert Weixelbaum) share that plan for global terrorism, they still create infectious and defiantly sentimental synth-pop that could haunt your neurons to kingdom come. Their weapon: the MC-505 Groovebox-- Roland's miracle synthesizer that combines the past models that made so much techno, house, and hip-hop possible, and now makes said genres ridiculously easy to produce. Duo505 employs two Grooveboxes to manufacture 8-bit cuddlecore ditties that could've been ripe for run 'n' jump Nintendo games and "Heathcliff" cartoons. And while their formula grows cumbersome over the course of seven songs-- this is the point of music-box subversion after all-- the band's execution still warrants repeated listens.
The opener, "Tsip Tsap", first teases with bombastic, Mouse on Martian beats until in kicks a melody straight from a wedding video intro. Alas, instead of the anticipated excursion into nasty breakcore, we get artificial sweetener. The flower-for-you-and-now-mate-with-me-too ballad is repeated for five minutes until the end when the song's DAT recording was possibly dropped in a glass of acidic Coca-Cola. There, the keyboards are suddenly de-tuned and choke to death on garbled data. "Nochwas" drinks from the same bottle, but thumps a prime StairMaster beat. "Lsdj08" has a keen bounce with a tubular, chirp-pop rhythm and melodies made rad by buzzing textures. One could picture this tune getting looped on a skatepark's PA in a move devised by the local city council to promote civility among its delinquents. Many noses could get bloodied, but at least the music is something that even a born-again, Pentecostal mom could like.
Less godly is "Wenig", with its disintegrating lullabies and Tourette's-addled noises adding a refreshing dynamic. Like that track, there are a few songs that break the monotony and sell this record. "Toru Okada" is a shoegazer epic that begins as a humble guitar ballad before enriching itself every few bars with marimbas and an electric guitar synth-patch that nudges the shy song in its ribs to go ahead and propose. "Disko + Bett" could also soften a cynic's black heart with its house thump smudged with distorted guitar tones and a talcum-powdered, xylophone melody.
On the other hand, "Facing It"-- Duo505's dour attempt at drama with a Sunday dusk piano melody and a flat, accordion patch-- only punches a post to see a ghost. In short: It's promising, but gradually tragic. Hence, this song ought to be played from every music box tucked into every car stereo, shopping mall, and hospital delivery room. The social unrest would be legend.
