The new album from Berliner Jan Jelinek Tierbeobachtungen, translating to “Animal Obersvations”, would make good listening for those amongst you planning a holiday to the jungle.  Perhaps not for the actual holiday, when you would probably need a few choice wits about you, but just for reading PDF holiday descriptions of trips to orang-utan sanctuaries and bat caves. 

Opening track “A Concert For Television” takes us straight into the electric rainforest, all impressionistically simulated animal noises intermingled jungle-wise; monkeys, birds, and insectoid buzz.  Looped snatches of backwards guitar in album highlight “The Ballad Of Soap” build with tribal intensity before decomposing into forest floor mulch.
Elsewhere, Jelinek’s trademark repetition enables campers to discern shapes in the foliage that may or may not be there; discerning between elements intentionally added between iterations and those where your brain joins the dots unbidded is neither simple, or entirely fruitful.  As with much of Jelinek’s work, this is an album to be entirely immersed in, and over-analysis may destroy some of its undeniable power.

Tierbeobachtungen at times brings to mind Herzog-era Popol Vuh, or Black Dice’s enjoyable Creature Comforts effort.  For his part, Jelinek opts to forego the Klaus Kinski-gone-quite-berserk and men-in-monkey-suit foolishnesses of those; ignoring the song titles, this is a more serious contribution to the disappointingly narrow popular canon of animal-related electronics.

Download “A Concert For Television” here
Buy it at Boomkat here