Miso Skitzo - Songs: for an old boy (2008)

Songs: for an old boy is a companion piece to a film titled Old Boy, (which admittedly I haven't seen)—but according to my sources, it is from 2003, by South-Korean director Park Chan-Wook, and won much critical praise.

Miso Skitzo is Dan Kaufman.  Dan has played in numerous punk, experimental and electronic groups over the last decade or so: Sugar on Shit, Vacation, Verboten Jogen, Penfield-88 and Invisible (the latter two with me).  Dan is all about some home recording and has put out many noisy electronic releases on cds and cassettes under his solo project name, Miso Skitzo.  Dan currently resides in Chicago where he and his partner run the "lazy CDr/tape label", Dirt Road Technologies.

Skitzo's album is an instrumental collection of dark noisy samples,  screeching overdriven tones and warm washes of industrial frustration.  A few electronic beats surface here and there, as well as some pleasingly minimal synth lines.  For every chaotic or abrasive moment, there is an equally delicate down-tempo counterpart.   Honestly, there is a lot going on on this album.  As Dan's moniker suggests, the music comes across as if it was made by a crazy person.  Then again, the movie it is based on is about a man who was trapped in a hotel room for 15 years and then seeks vengeance on his captors.  The emotions the character of the film must have felt in are certainly represented in this music.    (That's all I can say about that, considering I haven't seen the movie.   Yet.    I probably should, huh?)

If you took all the synthesizers, beats, scream-singing, and spoken clips away from a Ministry album, and left only the khooorrrrrrooohhhhrrrrrhhhhhzzzzzzzz sounds, then added the delicately played sparseness of the end of a Nine Inch Nails song, you'd have a Miso Skitzo album.

Tracklist:

1. the gas

2. octopus part 1

3. for those that cut

4. exoskeleton

5. we eat the living

6. octopus part 2

7. on the bridge

8. old boy

9. why

10. song for a little dog

11. octopus part 3

12. haircut

13. snow in the blood

enjoy it here