Balanescu Quartet
Possessed

If you unplug the Kraftwerk, you kill them, right? The champions of electronics poured into pop cannot live without electricity, right?

No, wrong. Not only does the Balanescu Quartet unplug them without much fuss, but they even reinterpret some classics of the German band in the most traditional setup in chamber music, that is, the string quartet: two violins, a viola, a cello.

For those who know both classical music and Kraftwerk, the juxtaposition between the two would seem like a joke or a provocation. In the case of "Possessed", an album released in 1992 (not the first of the Balanescu Quartet but the one that earned them considerable popularity), the mission impossible turns into a solid reality instead.

As we listen, we find five classics from the Düsseldorf band: "The Robots" and "The Model" (from "The Man Machine" of 1978; to be precise, the article the is missing on the Balanescu's record, and their "Robots" is actually a cover of the version of the track that appears on "The Mix" of 1991), "Autobahn" (from the 1974 album), "Computer Love" and "Pocket Calculator" (from "Computer World" of 1981).

And do you want to know something? The experiment works, because the remake of the tracks consists of their meticulous musical analysis clad in classical sounds, so much so that this album can be appreciated by both die-hard fans of Kraftwerk and those who may not know them, and in that case, could use this work as an experiment of short-circuit between electronic vs. acoustic music.

But it doesn't end here, since "Possessed" still contains four other tracks: three original compositions by Alexander Balanescu, the group leader, and a cover of "Hanging Upside Down" by David Byrne (from his album "Uh-Oh" of 1992). Four very interesting pieces (lasting 40 minutes, the album in total lasts 70) that add to the quartet's sounds the percussions (in the title track "Possessed") and the female voices (in "Want Me"); and particularly in these two cases, they propose the repetition of melodic-harmonic modules that vaguely recall the language of minimalism, while the last two tracks are closer to a ballad form.

Very fun in the Kraftwerk part, more personal in the second quartet part, "Possessed" is a strange album that winks at non-conformist listeners.