Peter Rehberg found beauty in the simplicity that is the act of destruction. His philosophy informs Klara Lewis’ »Thankful,« which is dedicated and responds to the late Editions Mego founder. Besides two recent collaborations with Nik Colk Void and Yuki Tsuji, Lewis has released all of her major works on the label that Rehberg ran until his untimely death in the summer of 2021. After a live album in December of the same year, »Thankful« is Lewis’ first album on the label whose legacy is now being carried on by distributor Morr Music together with Rehberg’s partner Isabelle Piechaczyk.
Opening with the 20-minute-long title track, Klara Lewis picks up on Rehberg’s »Track 3« from his »Get Out« album under the moniker Pita, using a simple loop that she subjects to more and more distortion for a piece that sounds like the »Disintegration Loops« had William Basinski hoarded CD-Rs full of low-res MP3s instead of magnetic tape. Repetition and difference—or life and its inevitable decline—are at once the key themes and compositional means on this record, whether on the squelching industrial banger »Top,« the backwards-running loops of the elegiac »4U« or the two pieces that work with ukulele recordings, an instrument whose use Rehberg probably hated but whose destruction under the hands of Lewis he surely would have enjoyed.
Thankful
