Search - Haujobb :: Solutions for Small a Planet

One of the best electronic albums of the 1990s

B. Snavely | San Diego, CA, USA | 07/12/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's sad that this group is pigeonholed into the "electro/industrial" genre by the media, most critics, and even fans. If you enjoy electronic music, or even modern music in general, once you give this album a few spins there is no going back. Haujobb began their career in the early ninties, sounding more like a Skinny Puppy or FLA knockoff, but they quickly got off that track and have been wonderfully innovative ever since. Gradually, this band IS being discovered; I recently attended their show with futurepop darlings VNV Nation in Los Angeles and the venue was packed with a couple thousand people. Haujobb played their set before the headliner VNV Nation, and got a better crowd response, which is almost unheard of!



Musically, this album is hard to pin down. It slightly reminds me of Photek, Portishead, Matthew Herbert, Front Line Assembly, and maybe soundtrack stuff like you'd hear in Alien movies. Like Portishead, this album takes grip of time and has its way with it. It's dark and futuristic like the best FLA albums, and much of it is tight, spacey drum'n'bass. But in the end these comparisons fail, because Solutions For a Small Planet is just so unique."

With Visions of Electro-SugarPlums Dancing In My Head

TastyBabySyndrome | "Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Lit | 05/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When listening, one sometimes finds themselves troubled when attempting to convey the exact nature of the melodies crafted, with the efforts to describe the landscape of the world that they've tuned into seemingly touching on it briefly but not truly. Simply saying that something is EBM music, for instance, and that it utilizes distortion to makes waves in a pool of sound works well, but it also describes a million different variations of melody. So, when touched by an enigmatic piece, what is one to do? Sometimes, one has only to close their eyes and envision the terrain that the speaker seeks to craft in order to identify the make and model progressing outward, letting the art of description reign supreme instead of the art of dissection. This will sometimes lead one into a world where feelings, they pound away at the earth like droplets of water falling from the skies, or where hearts, they craft a tedium of thoughts and projects. In other realms, however, there are darker visions, places that seem to be dwarfed by steel and shadows, and that seem cold and calculated in their precision. These are places without the feelings of bliss and that question purpose, showcasing tidal waves of the bleakness. Herein is where Small Solutions sits, crafting a world that is much more of wire than of man. Through outlets of oddity and the induction of sounds that normally aren't associated with the art of melody, Haujobb creates a sand and surf where electricity seems to flow freely and where thought patterns become a conduit that drifts into static sunsets. Here, machine speech can be heard in a wilderness of sound and a world of mesh sandcastles can be seen unfolding on a beach granulized by pulsating sonic waves. The press of cold and unfeeling terra, hardwired into distorted glimpses of vocalization moving to a sonnet of drumming pulse, mark the achievement of computerization and flesh mingling, touching for a moment and telling tales that speak of new worlds and old sadness. In its own right it is something unique and that can be measured in both a sense of awe and wonder, with notations made about beautiful additions splashing against the bleak, becoming something worthwhile for an audience to ingest.Perhaps the album will take more than a simple "once over" to understand and perhaps it will take many spins of the mental dial in order to find yourself addicted to it, but that time will come. Many say that it does exactly that and that this opinion is not alone, that it takes time to seep into the cranial hemispheres and begin to weave its web. Once it is there and once it is speaking, however, this piece of electronic music will find itself in rotation, asked to craft worlds where shadows speak often."

Good listened to in parts or whole

M. Mierzwa | Davis, CA USA | 03/29/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"About the Band:

Considered an industrial music giant, Germany's Daniel Myer and Dejan Samardzic typically puts out music that at times can be described as traditional electronic body music to much more experimental dark ambient techno. In addition to making use of both vocals and electronic created music, the prolific band is often considered a significant influence on many other industrial and electronic bands.



About the Album:

The hour and ten minute long album is considered by many Haujobb fans to be one of Myer's and Samardzic's best. Released in 1996, the album came at the mid-point of their long music careers, and shows the maturity and quality one would expect from electronic music veterans. A number of the tracks are completely instrumental, with others having minimal vocals or voice-overs including for small portions of the tracks. While I like the instrumental pieces, I tended to prefer the tracks where Myer's cool vocals were much more prominent.



Some tracks I recommend:

- Nature's Interface

- Journey Ahead

- Clockwise

- Depths

- Sub Unit One



This is one of my favorite Haujobb albums, but I tend to prefer to listen to it on quiet evenings at home alone. The majority of the album is rather subtle in its approach, having a more atmospheric feel. A number of the tracks, most notably Journey Ahead, on this album tend to please patrons of industrial club dancefloors. The Cage Complex is also notable because it includes a saxophone.



Sideprojects:

Architect, Cleaner, Clear Vision, Cleen, HMB, & Newt



Similar Artists:

Ah Cama-Sotz, Black Lung, C/A/T, Empusae, Forma Tadre, Frontline Assembly, Halo_Gen, Gridlock, Mlada Fronta, Sleepwalk, This Morn' Omina

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