The False Positives
By Vincent Truman On February 23rd, 2010
The False Positives is a band that started from the deepest, warmest love and a malfunctioning pregnancy test. Sven Gutentag and Marta Vashentung were two musicians in the bustling Wank-haus district in the small village town of Wank, Germany. Sven specialized in singalong drones, while Marta found infinite inspiration from playing music on animals.
During a performance at Vunnan Atoo’s Open Mic night, Sven’s seventeen-minute opus, “C Major”, was interrupted by some of Marta’s more vocal dik-diks, which burst from their pen and knocked Sven headlong into the glockenspiel. Marta nursed his injuries, including one he didn’t mention he had, and the next morning, the two embarked on a journey to their local pharmacist, at which it was revealed that Marta was with child. The two dumped the infant on the side on the road and bought some pregnancy tests, all of which came up positive.
Sven, inspired by the pee-penned sticks, began to write a new piece, entitled “A Minor”, in praise of his to-be-born offspring. Marta encouraged him by locking Sven in an attic cage with the ocelots. Because of bad architecture, Sven soon found himself, along with some floorboard from the attic, back in Marta’s bed and the two made love passionately. It was only the following day, when Sven discovered Marta had a gig that night, that he had to apologize to the ocelot.
Enraged by this infidelity, Marta began to write songs by hitting Sven with various pieces of cutlery and dishes. Her rarely heard demo, “You Had Sex With An Ocelot?”, has long been thought to be one of her most rarely heard demos. Soon the two of them were throwing pieces back and forth at each other with such cadence that nearly a whole album was written.
Marta and Sven headed into the studio in Kolonoscopie, Switzerland, along with their friends Uta, Bling and Notajew. There they laid down such tracks as “Love U When Ur Far Away” and “Your Favorite Addiction” as well as a demo track of “Alaja”, a sound that Marta made when she sneezed. But they had yet to find the true name of the band.
Then Marta didn’t get bigger. And the name was found.
The group soldiered on, with Sven grateful that he didn’t have to be nice to Marta anymore. “Anonymous” was followed by “Not Girls” which was followed by another song with a title. “Our sound is the sound of shoe stores and hair dressers,” said Sven, hoping a reporter was around. None was, but Uta, who wrote down everything she heard, scribbled it into her notepad.
So what is the sound of the False Positives? Inspired by European trance and pop, the songs vary from the guitar-trance of “The Painting Of” to the Summer-of-Love-trance of “Sunny Sunny Sun” to the trance-trance of “Someone’s In My Heart Tonight.” “We call it N Trance,” explained Marta to Uta, knowing she would write it down. “Someone’s already done that,” countered Sven. “Oh, well never mind,” shrugged Marta and left the clinic.
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“False Positives” is a real album, recorded by me. The above is just nonsense.
http://www.lulu.com/content/compact-disc/false-positives/8350468
