Kinder aus Asbest

"Inside" (EP, 2011)

Self Release

This has a great starting point: what might (a pre-Joy Division) Warsaw have sounded like if Ian Curtis had teamed up to write songs with Fad Gadget instead of Hooky, Sumner and Morris. The answer is tantalisingly hinted at on this debut EP from Sweden's Kinder aus Asbest (aka Erik Söderberg), but is sadly never actually delivered upon. The band name means Children from Asbestos.

Ignoring the stylish, but entirely misleading artwork, spartan is the watch word here. From the minimalist sounds to the portentous (and definitely with pretensions) song titles which are all moody single words: Dark, Space, Empty, Soul, Presence and Love. It’s all over very quickly - with none of the six songs running over 3½ minutes this entire EP clocks in at less than 18 minutes. A self release, this is currently available as a free download from the Kinder aus Asbest website on Tumblr.

I really want to like this more and wish it had been successful, but perhaps attempting to pull of such a concept more than 30 years after the styles utilised here were introduced is fundamentally flawed from the start? I’m not sure… I was willing this to be greater than it is. As it stands, these all come across like early 4-track bedroom recordings that were rejected before Curtis or Tovey decided to release anything commercially. Still, an interesting idea if nothing else. 6/10

Rob Dyer (June 2011)