ODRZ - ODRZ05

It was nice of ODRZ to go to all the effort to record a CD for my birthday (March 9th is listed as the creation date in the liner notes) though I am not entirely sure whether their efforts were warranted. "ODRZ05" regurgitates an hour of TV signal into a steaming pile with enough recognizable bits that you can tell what they had for dinner the previous night but chewed up enough to turn things that lovely pinkish hue that seems to belong to the stomach contents of drunks everywhere. While I can appreciate the spectacle, I'm not so sure I want to act like a shameless dog and lick up this unappetizing pile of random spew. The recording is presented as a monolithic splat which is not a plus considering it's 60 minutes long. Processed it may be but the technique seems very much yoinked from a single text book - AM warbling, reverb and distortion with the odd bit of pitch shift (feedback cranked) to spice up the mealy porridge. The other ingredient that makes an appearance is a single mid range tone which slips in for the odd hello a number of times throughout the release. And that's it. The problem with this kind of thing is that unless you include a baggie containing the same drugs that the folks who tweaking the effects unit were on with each copy out the door, the listener is stuck a position not unlike that of an unwary bus rider trapped between a ranting crazy and several drunken rowdies on their way home from the sports bar. Unless you too are in the same inebriated state, the jokes don't strike as funny, the banter is increasingly annoying and the more they repeat themselves the lower your tolerance dips. Really, what's here at best should have been a short EP since there just ain't enough content, movement or resonance to justify the disc at once CDR burn. Unfortunately it seems that an hour of television is more than enough to put ODRZ to sleep.
Moron, Industrial.org

Wloska grupa ODRZ za swoje glówne zródlo inspiracji powziela sobie telewizje. Odnajdujac w nich braci w fascynacji teoria mass mediów przystapilem do penetracji dzwiekowych zasobów w gatunku który mnie wcale nie zdziwil – noise i lekko industrial. Poziom moze i oklepanej konwencji, ale zawierajacy w sobie wszystko to co powinna miec tego typu produkcja. Fascynacja, fascynacja, ale ODRZ stawiaja sobie za cel sciagniecie ludzi z nalogowego siedzenia przed skrzynkami. I mozna powiedziec, ze udalo im sie osiagnac swój cel. Ich efekt zostal wykreowany na bazie równoczesnej pracy efektów z jednoczesnych nagran dzwieku plynacych z 6 róznych odbiorników telewizyjnych. Nagranie odbywalo sie przez 1 godzine, dnia 28 lutego 2002 roku pomiedzy 8 a 9 wieczorem, a powtórzone 9 marca 2002. ODRZ przemiksowali strumienie dzwieku nadajac mu twarde i mocne kontury, w taki sposób ze ciezko rozpoznac pojedyncze ciagi telewizyjne. Ten mozaikowy wzór to jak mówilem glównie noise i tylko halas pozostaje praktycznie na calosci materialu. Ekstensywne zabarwianie efektami powoduje, ze koniecznie trzeba wylaczyc odbiorniki w calym domu i najlepiej jeszcze zaopatrzyc sie w srubokret, aby rozkrecic glosniki i sprawdzic czy aby nie wybuchaja. Zakres manipulacji, nakladania warstw i distortion, poszerza sie wrecz nieskonczenie tworzac, w linearnym nastepstwie, szalenczy i chaotyczny noise, z którego trudno ulepic jakikolwiek sensowny przekaz telewizyjny. Konceptualna sztuka oparta na zdobyczach cywilizacyjnych przeradza sie w halasujace, medialne monstrum, które dopiero tworzy papke z glowy – wieksza niz wypowiedzi Romana Giertycha. Rozpuszczanie dzwieku, obrzucanie efektami, transformowanie, modulowanie – nie ma znaczenia jakimi sposobami osiagneli swój cel ludzie z ODRZ. Wazne jest, ze prawie godzina dobrej antymuzyki rozpruwa po raz 4 moje uszy i skutecznie odciaga od sleczenia przed bozyszczem cywilizacji, tylko naklania do ponownego, masochistycznego katowania sie strumieniem noise w wykonaniu ODRZ.
/ao/, Kultura Industrialna.

The television set is the main subject of this project of the Italian art group ODRZ. Their goal is to chase people away from their television sets. And I can only say they succeed in their goal quite well. Their industrial noise (as they themselves quite correctly call it) is build up by mixing and using a lot of effects on six different soundrecordings of one hour of tv, recorded on the 28th of February 2002 between 8 and 9 p.m. and alterated on the 9th of March 2002. ODRZ mixes these streams in such a way that you hardly ever hear they work with tv-streams. It's basicly a lot of noise and not much more most of the time. The kind that would indeed make you turn off your tv if this sound hailed for it. In fact it would most probably make you reach for your screwdriver to open your speakers and see if you haven't blown them. No matter how much they thus succeed in their mission, they succed in one other thing as well to let me run to my cd-player and hit the off button just as hard as I would do on my tv. Statement made, now lets get some good music in the cd-player and not listen to the full hour this one track cd lasts.
Funprox.com

Massimo Mascheroni is the guy behind ODRZ and on February 28th, 2002 he recorded 6 Italian nationwide television networks for an hour and a few days after he processed those sounds (the audio part of it) thus rendering the original sounds beyond recognition. An hour long distorted sounds, that could have also come from radio, various processed bird sounds or fifty different fridges - but it's TV and the idea is probably the distortion of reality or to show how dum we get from watching TV and that communication gets thinner and thinner, the more we watch the tube. It's a bit unclear why this has to be an hour. It could have been 20 minutes and it would have made exactely the same point. Now the noise acts as a background in very much the similar way as TV does for a lot of people. When it comes to mixed media music pieces, I think I still prefer Cage's Variations 4.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

"The live performance consists in undergoing alterations the sound broadcasted in real time by the television networks, showing images at the same time". Uh? Mediocre harsh noise - not even that harsh - generated by tv audio though distortion and phaser, or whatever. Jeez, I could even recognize a footbal match. Why should I listen to 60' of this? Is the concept that interesting? Isn't tv bad enough, should I also listen to its harsh noise version?
Chain D.L.K.

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