Where bought: Here's one I do remember. I bought it from In The Red, the label AH Kraken were on. Memorably, for an online transaction, ITR sent a second copy as I thought the first one was lost in the post. That copy turned up six months later while the second one took about a fortnight.
Thinking about what happened next will probably be the main theme of this write-up.
I went on Facebook and said "I've got a second copy of this record that I guess most of you won't know, but I can send it to you for free or trade it" and described the sound as best I could. The taker was one Joey Chainsaw, who sent me two CDs of his own music.
I had only met Joey once, in approximately 2004. Living at my parents as a workshy 21-year old double dropout was too difficult for my tiny mind, so I split for a few days to Cheltenham on the invite of a friend. She lived in a student house with her partner (in fact, it wasn't her house, she was sub-letting, and having me over caused some friction, and I ended up sleeping on the floor in the lounge), two Japanese students called Ringo and Yoyo, someone else I can't remember, and Joey Chainsaw.
Joey was tall and gaunt with long straight hair and wore his chronic depression heavily. He didn't communicate much verbally. One day, however, he invited me down to the basement where he had a guitar, a keyboard, a rudimentary drum-kit, and we jammed with a third party whose name I have forgotten. I played drums (I am not a drummer) and the other guy played keyboards, but the star of the show was Joey. He quickly consumed himself in a vortex of whipping psychedelic blacknoise and his accompanists simply tried not to spoil the mood. An hour passed as if it were less than half that.
I never physically saw Joey again after I left Cheltenham. We remained in contact online. His role in my life, now I think about it, was one of the few people I always allow to guide me to new art and trust implicitly even if I'm not overwhelmed on first contact because I know their spirit is good and they're deeply in contact with the world they're channeling.
Joey took his own life in 2011. I attended his funeral in Swindon. I'll play his Golden Contact CD later, as it must be approximately exactly ten years ago.
AH Kraken were from Metz, in the east/NE of France. I heard them first on WFMU and was instantly hooked by their lo-slung nihilism grafting no wave atonalism with some kind of primitive garage slop. From the perspective of 2021 there's definitely a whiff of edgelord horseshit in their name and aesthetic, but the music successfully overwhelms it.
In The Red and Goner rode a nice wave of garage revivalism in the mid-to-late 00s but AH Kraken stand apart from that: i. because they're French and sing in a mix of French, German, and English ii. because they're not doing what a lot of garage does ie. noisy pop songs iii. there's a fine line of actual chaos and torpor in the music, tottering on the edge of catastrophe and failure. A lot of the American bands, whisper it quietly, are actually way too professional to pull it off convincingly.
Elle avait peut-être 19 ans mais pour moi elle en aura toujours 12 has 11 songs and I'm pretty sold on 10 of them. They all whip along quickly and in 29 minutes the whole thing is over. Any more and the ugliness would overtake the listener. The best three are the opener 'Alain Muller' (grinding intensity and a wild outro), 'Black Borny' (sparse nihilism and creepy harmonics), and 'She Plays Loud' (tension and release masterpiece).
A keeper. I'm not the same person that I was when I bought and played the shit out of it. But it reminds me of Joey and is a great occasional listen.
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