Peter Kris looks through
lots of lenses. The German Army conspirator has released under various monikers
so many tapes and records and CDs about so many people, places, and things that
the question “What lens is Peter Kris [and collaborator, if applicable] looking
at the world through this time?” The answer on his recent Orb Tapes release is,
“… a Lens.” Just, Through a Lens. We
have to figure the type of lens out for ourselves, then, don’t we?
Fortunately we have Orb
Tapes’s descriptive copy, and through it we find that Kris recorded the
majority of the audio in Taiwan. So with the origin of the field recordings
determined, we can picture at least where on the map we are, even if we haven’t
ever been to Taiwan itself. Weirdly, Taiwanese daily life, including the rain,
the wind in trees, and birdsong, etc., sounds awfully like what we’re used to
here in the United States. Different language, sure, but oddly enough, people
on the other side of the world are remarkably human, living remarkably similar
lives to ours. Let that be a lesson to us, one that Depeche Mode once tried to
hammer home: people are people; let’s treat each other nicely.
Kris grew up in the San
Gabriel Valley, so Taiwan was always just a plane ride across the ocean for
him, and he finally got a chance to get there. As Concrete Colored Paint, the
moniker he uses for his more ambient releases, he takes us along with him as he
wanders around the country, processing the sounds and incorporating synthesizer
washes as accompaniment. It holds an even keel throughout, and even branches
off into kosmische tangents at points. In the end, though, it’s another
fascinating travelogue from the master of them.