Schulte/Eriksson: ‘For The Sake Of Clarity’
It’s an inviting idea. Anna Schulte and Lisa Eriksson sit around in a room in Liverpool with a couple of detuned guitars and some basic looping gear (plus a pair of rhythm-section men borrowed from Mersey psychedelics The Living Brain) to see what happens. They hum out songs and snatches of conversation in a way that’s always on the verge of crumbling to bits, but still holds together, like the immortality of crudded-up cobwebs – lots of interesting little fragments bound up in a tenuous snaggle.
Listening to the bits and pieces of lo-fi invention which they’ve kept on tape shows that Schulte/Eriksson have something in their music like the wobbly stagger of Captain Beefheart’s bloodshot jamming. Or like the scratchier bits of German science-rock that get played at you during music parties (the ones where the competitive art-freak boys are trying to uber-weird each other). But Anna and Lisa seem totally unconcerned with any of these fixations on pointers and signifiers. They’re an offbeat double act, sounding simultaneously bizarre and totally natural. It’s not just their German and Swedish accents as they bounce off English ears. When one of them asks the other “if I say the word ‘sexuality?’ to you, what do you think about that?” she’s met with an incredulous giggle (as if she’d asked “what sound does bread make?”) and neither of them come up with anything.
There’s something warm and alien about these women. Likeable but unreachable – like the futile task of trying to make a cat explain itself, trying to get beyond that affectionate and satisfied manner that displays nothing you can recognise and use for leverage. Interviews have (so far) revealed a pair of women totally detached from earnestness, preciousness or any other self-conscious qualities, and with a simple and unconcerned desire to just let music come.
The music, scribbling and swerving across the grooves of their single like a loose cluster of stoned bees, seems happy to oblige. The straightest that Schulte/Eriksson ever get is the bizarre jazz-train lurch of For The Sake Of Clarity. Their guitar (tuned with a kind of hummingbird logic) hop and pump ahead of the beat; their voices play up and down in stretchy harmonies. “Henry Kaiser playing a samba” is one possible description. I’m also wondering whether Sonic Youth might have produced something shaped like this, in the sweet muzziness after a Brazilian bender.
In Answering Machine the blokes from the Brain bash and stumble away manfully to give the song a bone structure, but in vain. All of the attention goes to the way Lisa and Anna’s voices tug up at their dismal otherworldly sag of guitar chords and take it to somewhere else. For the queasy First Ear Reset/Schaller/Riff, they sound like they’ve turned their guitars upside down: more perturbing jazz-punk chords and steam-whistle tweets yanked off the strings. A violent riff smashes in from another tape and shuts everything down. Their serene smiles probably didn’t drop a notch. But they were obviously laughing when they stuck a phony dance-pop title onto Bassline Loop/No. 1 Hit – it’s about a minute of drunken, tarry slide guitar and murmuring voices which are suddenly exposed as the instruments fall silent and intersect in lovely arcs like a tiny choir of mediaeval nuns… just as the tape runs out.
Scratching cheerfully at the join of subconscious and curiosity, Schulte/Eriksson might use a disorienting private language to run the dig – but you still feel invited to perch nearby. If you’ve ever felt like sitting in on the beginnings of music, here’s a chance to do it.
Schulte/Eriksson: ‘For the Sake of Clarity/Answering Machine’
Org Records, ORG 054
7-inch vinyl-only single
Released: 1999
Buy it from:
Org Records, or look for it second-hand.
Schulte/Eriksson online:
Misfit City 
This review was written in 1999 and credited to “Fermina Daza” – the female, Gabriel Garcia Marquez-inspired pseudonym under which, for some reason, many of my best ‘Misfit City’ reviews were written. As Schulte/Eriksson themselves toyed with gender and sexuality confusion, it’s quite appropriate that my transsexual alter-ego covered their output.
The review’s been a little tidied-up for its reappearance but essentially it’s the same as it was then. While I’m not always convinced by the fall-apart end of art rock, occasionally something comes along which I feel is pure gold. This was a fine example, as well as being one of my favourite releases on the often-heroic Org Records label.
As for the remaining history of Schulte/Eriksson, the group’s lifespan was brief, and they disbanded in 2000. Anna Schulte went on to Funsize Lions and subsequently spent time drumming for The Slits, while Lisa Eriksson was briefly in the debut lineup of Ladytron before moving on to Los Angeles and co-founding Techno Squirrels.
The Living Brain (provider of support musicians) also disbanded in 2000. This band, I’ve since discovered, had strong links with Liverpudlian garage rock heroes The Stairs and members went on to work in Zukanican, Kung Fu and Rhombus of Doom.