Modell Doo
Orbit Utopia deals with the biographies of 12 scientists (two of them are ficticious) in a serious dark new wave idiom, re-armed by contemporary electronics: a highly engaging orchestration of rationality as mystery."
Diedrich Diederichsen, "Spex", September 2014
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„Somewhere between math metal, robotic space pop and data ambient."
Thomas Edlinger, FM4
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„Wonderfully produced .... a fascinating trip through amazing soundscapes."
Irmin Schmidt, Ex-Can
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„When conceptual art becomes sensual."
Fritz Ostermayer, „Im Sumpf“, Radio FM4, September 2014
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"Modell Doo are mythomaniacs, which makes for the fascination of this album, which is based in the electric eighties, therefore sounding old-fashioned
and highly modern at once. Let's say: relativistically timeless. (...) So dream and truth merge, art and knowledge blur, and Modell Doo are having their luciferian pleasure. Strange. And
good."
Thomas Kramar, "Die Presse", October 2014
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“It’s really hard to get the sound of this duo, which probably stands for their ‘dada’-inspiration. (…) ‘The Interpreter’ is a pretty cool example where new-wave and experimentalism have been merged. Another recommended track is the electro-industrial, bombastic ‘Enemy’."
DP, "Side-Line Music Magazine", March 2012
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“Brit-phile, industrial-related pale-singing meets twitchy steel cable riffs, drum computers and Tascam loops. (…) Frightfully delightful, not only for the archivists of the fading proliferation!”
Paul Poet, "Skug", March 2012
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“This crude mixture of electro punk, avant-garde and Dada pop partly confuses and disturbs one, but it’s also pretty entertaining. Especially the new track ‘Norman’s Noise’ fascinates me, made me immediately think of Coil and their soundtrack for ‘The Angelic Conversation’. Barbara Spitz with her sublimely reciting voice sounds just like the great Judi Dench in Derek Jarman’ s legendary gay classic. Whoever wants to explore the depths of the Austrian underground, will need Modell Doo’s ‘Dinky Diamond’."
Marco Fiebag, "Black Magazine Online", March 2012
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"Modell Doo is a great band, but also a project that many have known just by name, but couldn’t really relate to. One only knew that Modell Doo was one of those legendary local eighties bands, right? And didn’t they also do a film? Something really strange? Yes, yes and yes: Modell Doo composed soundtracks for Carl Andersen’s movies ,Mondo Weirdo’ and ,I Was a Teenage Zabbadoing / Vampyros Sexos’ that made them internationally known – up until today for many people this band’s name has a certain mythical and venerable aura. There were hardly any releases in the past 25 years, merely an EP plus one soundtrack – on tape.
(…) ,Dinky Diamond’ nevertheless is not a dusty retrospective, but a brilliantly produced, complex work from the here and now. It has been newly recorded, lovingly compiled and packed into a beautiful cover by Klanggalerie. (…) Modell Doo are not abstract avant-gardists, their tracks are actually comparatively direct and catchy – maybe a sort of Viennese version of Art Pop (in its most positive sense), very detailed and furnished with an abundance of creaking and groaning sounds.
(...) Conclusion: an overdue survey of a project that originated in the eighties but is no slave to the zeitgeist – neither then nor now. Alternative music with depth and meaning, neither all too intellectual nor too eager to please."
Review by Scrag!, www.gothic.at, December 2011
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"... very, very interesting re-release ... a lovingly arranged glance at a scene just in between the eighties’ hedonistic pop and the arrival of grunge ... fascinated by electronic music following an exciting avant-garde idea ...
The band’s sound aesthetics are pure eighties: screaming guitars à la Bauhaus and Wire, gloomily stretched bilingual vocals and titles like "Weißes Licht" and "The Action is Beautiful", intellectual references from Darwin and Huxley to splatter movies, using electronic drums and samples from the school of Material/ Arto Lindsay/ DNA.“
Boris Jordan, FM4, November 2011
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“New Glam revisited: The Austrian duo Modell Doo dedicates the album ‘Dinky Diamond’ to a legendary figure of glam pop.”
“L'hystérie au pouvoir! – Hysteria owes its power to its uncontrollable nature. The hysteric will not be pacified, he is the true punk. In the good old age of New Wave people knew about this – and about the subversive hysteria inherent to the art of the opera, see Klaus Nomi. The excellent Art Pop duo Modell Doo, affected by that era and in love with all mannerisms, introduces an operatic lady in the song ‘Don't Overact’, a composition that is more shaken than carried by harsh rhythms – and she explains to the world: ‘I do not overact. I do not overreact.’ Of course she does, and the singer’s voice cracks, evidently he’s losing his mind: Is she an angel after all? Here’s a proposal for a combination to DJs not interested in their customers’ salvation: first this song, then ‘She's Lost Control’ by Joy Division – and then silence for once.”
Thomas Kramar, „Die Presse“, November 2011
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"During the late eighties Modell D’oo belonged to the Viennese underground in places like Chelsea and Blue Box. Now, more than a quarter century since their formation, the band has surprisingly published a debut album with both restored old tracks and new recordings. Experimental pop meets jagged guitars, industrial of the philanthropical sort meets minimalist goth-electronics. A classical object for enthusiasts."
Gerhard Stöger, "Falter", November 2011
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"A band that generated a lot of buzz in the eighties reappears after a long time-out. And they do so with a genuinely first-class piece of music. The album ,Dinky Diamond’ reveals itself as an exceedingly thrilling, multilayered and varied sound trip through the most diverse forms of electronic pop music. One thing is immediately evident: Modell Doo never fit any conventional definitions and musical categories. The path they follow leads in all conceivable directions – except into the ordinary. All their tracks sound incredibly complex – and the band manages impressively to build a bridge between Then and Now, without seeming exertedly ,retro’ even for a moment. On ,Dinky Diamond’ pop, electro and sound art, ambition, innovative spirit and sonority are combined to form a wonderfully and multifaceted whole. It is simply fun listening to those tracks. With this album Modell Doo prove that they have not lost the ability to produce high-class pieces. Definitely worth an intensive listening session."
Michael Ternai, mica – music austria, November 2011 -- http://www.musicaustria.at/musicaustria/pop-rock-elektronik/modell-doo-dinky-diamond
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"Fresh out of the time machine: Modell Doo sound like in the old days, when year dates still began with 198: agelessly modern electro-pop."
Thomas Kramar, „Die Presse“-Schaufenster, November 2011
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"Recommended: an experimental Viennese duo working somewhere between electro-pop, sound avant-garde, gothic stuff, existentialism, industrial, electroacoustics, and Dadaism. 2010 Modell Doo reformed for a short gig on the occasion of the ,Neonbeats’ album release. Obviously they got hooked: Now there’s even an album published at Klanggalerie in Vienna – the first one in the history of the band, by the way – during the eighties only a vinyl EP was published. ,Dinky Diamond’ combines digitized old recordings with new material.“
"Falter", November 2011
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“... nearly the whole movie is set to music, like industrial, pounding type sounds. I know a lot of people say movies like House of a Thousand Corpses seem like a music video – but I’d say this Mondo Weirdo movie is probably way more
like a music video. (...) Very surreal, the constant music in the background creates this really creepy atmosphere, this really vile feeling. (...) Definitely worth a look if you’re into strange
films, it’s without a doubt one of the best I’ve seen, has a really great atmosphere.”
Review Mondo Weirdo by jugchord, June 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsYXVzbPjsM&feature=grec_index
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„Modell Doo provides the industrial/new-wave style score that starts off strong and provides great energy and an atmosphere that would have suited a modern day grand guignol show just as well, as it chugs along, literally driving the action of the film and inspiring the characters to be as aggressive as it is. unfortunately Modell Doo never put out an album, but at least their music can be enjoyed in this film.“
Website „Records were made to be broken“,
posted by skirt on: http://breakrecords.blogspot.com/2010/08/mondo-weirdo.html
August 2010
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Neonbeats, Vienna Replugged, 24 April 2010
"Fun evening of Austrian new wave and post-punk revivalism to celebrate the release of a new, extensive compilation of this stuff on Klanggalerie. Of the four
groups I saw, the only one that made a really lasting impression were Modell Doo, a synth/guitar and drums duo
who played with a sharp, brittle passion."
Richard Rees Jones in: http://viennesewaltz.wordpress.com/
April 2010
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"My main point of interest to the films of Carl Andersen, aside from the fact that they're delightfully entertaining and earnest in a way that
most cinema has forgotten about, comes from the fact that ever since seeing Andersen's most notorious film, 1990's Mondo Weirdo, I've been a bit obsessed with the band that does the
soundtracks for what appears to be his entire oeuvre, Modell Doo. There's a track that I absolutely love from Mondo Weirdo that also appears in this film, albeit in a stripped down version.
Regardless, liking the music of the soundtrack significantly helps to enjoy the film."
http://esotika.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-was-teenage-zabbadoing-carl-andersen.html
March 2008
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„Modell Doo, being the metropolitan destroyers they are, start off a sampled guitar like a Formula One fast car, blending canned laughter, fragments of a TV dialogue and particles of an Indian sitar melody to a slow motion punch card sound with cleverly acted out monotonies.“
Thomas Mießgang, linernotes to the album karma mécanique, May 1993
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„A musical avalanche being triggered by Modell Doo.“
Giselher Smekal, Musik ist mehr als Klang – magazine for contemporary music, Radio Ö1, June 1988
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“Spinet sounds alternating with the rustling of an organ mixed with a tin can rhythm , guitars, street noises and the tingling of bells: Viennese post avant-garde duo Modell Doo generates new sounds out of the raw material of serious and popular music. According to the principle that whatever suits entertainment, is also fine with us, the band rummages in the waste bin of mainstream music and produces new, sometimes ironic structures out of the found materials. Following a debut EP, Modell Doo has been invited to Kassel, where the duo will play live at ,Musik zur Documenta’ on August 23rd.”
"profil" magazine, on Empty Metropolis, August 1987
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„Modell Doo’s Eating a Flower bears more than a few traces of Japan, albeit extensively maltreated by profound references to Cabaret Voltaire: On their debut EP the band presents an admittedly interesting mixture. By the way: It is not Sheffield or Liverpool they come from – but Mödling.“
Eberhard Forcher, Radio Ö3 -- Nachtexpress, March 23, 1987
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„Why is there so much noise in your music? Why is it that aggressive and fragmented? (...) Rigid Repetitions in a Rotary Rhyme: A song by Modell Doo bears such an elaborate name. How does that come about, I ask, and I do not so much mean the name – but that music. (...) Blood Red Lips und Virgin Roses: A song like that could also appeal to one’s grandaunt; she would maybe still ask to switch off the vacuum cleaner – but that’s impossible: It’s stuck in the song.“
Werner Geier, Radio Ö3 -- Musicbox, February 25, 1987