Beet-hoven

The Vegetable Orchestra

I wasn't sure what to make of this at first, but then I visited the website and got REALLY confused. The First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra features instruments made almost entirely from...you guessed it, produce. The line that really threw me was this: the instruments are subsequently made into a soup so that the audience can then enjoy them a second time...

I clicked on the song samples and got nothing but silence. Aha! thought I. This is merely a very thorough, very weird prank. Then I realized my speakers weren't on. Remedied that and what do you know? Sounds, and interesting ones at that. The renditions of actual tunes (sample: Radetsky March) are less tuneful than covers by, say, that guy who squeezes out William Tell with his bare hands but the effort is no less impressive.

The older album seemed more acoustic (organic?) while the newer release explores the dancier side of the salad bar. For example, cut 1 sounds like a raver aspirating on his Red Bull (but in a good way) while this has a much more jungly feel.

While the notion of preparing a delicious gazpacho from your Bolero orchestra is charming, the idea of actually eating vegetables that someone else has been slapping together or spitting through pretty much skeeves me out.