Torky Tork - Black (2007)

Confession time: I've been getting super burnt out listening to garage/psychedlia/lo-fi music all day. How many mornings have I woken up, head throbbing with memories of relentless tom-toms. reverb coating the windows in frost. What day is it? Floor scattered LPs imprinted with names like "Burger" and "In The Red"... this vinyl flooring... did I pass out in the kitchen?

I believe it an integral aspect of human health to switch things up. Variety isn't just the spice of life, it's the essence of life. We all must keep moving; keep experiencing. Once we stop moving, we die.

To all of you avid reader(s) and podcast listener(s), you've heard of my love for the hip hop, the trip hop, and yes... even the bibidy bop. But were you aware how much I love DJ music? That sample-based genre that makes art out of the lost and found? I mean, at this point that's all music is, right? DJs are different in that they aren't delusional about what they "borrow" from others. They know they're taking samples from records. And often times, what they create ends up MORE unique than another Velvet Underground rip-off.

Torly Tork is a great example of the talent that's out there... a lot of which you can find on bandcamp for free. I love this self-description he has on his bandcamp page, "Skipping through endlessly boring 70s flics from Eastern Germany and digging in the crates for 1€ records crammed with scheisse Volsmusik is something TORK does all the time...don't ask yourself why. Listen!"


"Scheisse Volksmusik" translates to "shitty folk music" or something close. It seems our Berliner friend, Torky Tork, can turn shit into gold. Good thing for us. What we've here are strange German records and films sampled and spliced over some tasty hip-hop beats. That's about it. There's quite a bit of German spoken word over top, too, I'm guessing from one of those East German flicks he mentions. I didn't pay close enough attention in high school German class to understand much here... it might be a bunch of communist propaganda for all I know. If it is, it's the phatest (kids still say that, right?) communist propaganda record in existence.
23 tracks.

Torky Tork - Black