German journalist Wolf Kampmann imagines the Two Dogs – prolific, punkish-Dadaist vocalist and wizard turntablist Joke Lanz (a proud dog owner) and feedbacker, multitasker guitarist Beat Keller (apparently, a cat person, and in-demand recording engineer) – as two extraterrestrials on an occasional, eventful trip to Planet Earth. These two «Swiss guys with a suitcase in Berlin» suggest on their sophomore album as a duo what we already suspected: People Do Strange Things, and offer their insightful observations about the artistic side of the culture-conscious Earthlings.
People Do Strange Things, like the previous album, Songs From the Trash Can (Everest, 2023), offers uplifting, smart, but absurdist perspectives that encourage us to adopt independent, subversive thoughts, free from all prejudice, categories, and hierarchies, and focus on fucking the system (as British, Berlin-based poet Sean Bonney wrote it). And Two Dogs apply that vision to their music, a rare, impossible mix of hyper-chanson, death jazz, Euroamericana, cyber blues, Fluxus kitsch, Schlaga-Dada, sampling terrorism and trivial avant-garde.
The thirteen songs (in the digital version, which includes three bonus songs, including a new version of «Holiday In Fukushima» from Songs From the Trash Can) are much-needed, informational, filter-free advice that de-mediatizes all the cacophonous blah-blah-blah of our fucked-up, artificially intellectualized cyber society. Two Dogs’ irresistible, bluesy groove would make you dance involuntarily and chant «fuck the system», like clueless, passionate revolutionaries.
But Two Dogs are not nihilists. They are intrigued by the strange things we do and the strange reasons that motivate us, and they search for a poetic explanation. They use American poetess Lilace Mellin Guignard surreal yet sober answer: «Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes. / You know that Mama loves you lollipops / and Daddy still has a job to lose…» As disillusioned Swiss, they warn anyone who trusts the myths about Swiss efficiency and the neat, public order and better believe how insanely expensive it is, and tell us what is really important in life in the love ode to singular footballer Harry Kane. These extraterrestrials conclude their crash-landing on the blue planet with the observation that to understand the world you most likely have to be a child, prostitute, priest, or an asshole.
Perhaps it all comes back to why Joke Lanz and Beat Keller came to the name Two Dogs. Somewhere they witnessed a Miniature Pinscher and an Irish Wolfhound, unexpectedly finding themselves face to face and erupting into full-throated barking. Lanz and Keller decided that this was exactly how they wanted to shape their music, opening up an entirely new way for us Earthlings to experience something we had previously thought beyond comprehension in the universe.
Eyal Hareuveni
Joke Lanz (vocals, turntables, electronics), Beat Keller: feedbacker electric guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, backing vocals), Alexandre Babel (drums)
https://boomslangrecords.bandcamp.com/album/people-do-strange-things
