Goodiepal - Collected Works

Goodiepal (the most commonly used moniker of Danish artist Kristian Vester) is rather difficult to describe. He is a genuine eccentric who might accurately be called a genius. Radical programmer, philosopher/theorist, performance artist, composer, techno producer, political/environmental activist, teacher, inventor, and many other things simultaneously, the improbably fast-talking Goodiepal is better experienced than described. For example:




... Vester's discography is a vast and tangled mess of alternate versions, unofficially remixed corporate jungles, pseudonymous dance music and nigh-impenetrable hacker art. It's also, as you are about to discover for yourself, a lot of fun. He gives some of his music away online, but then takes it back and sometimes re-titles it, changes parts of it, releases pieces in different versions under different titles or releases new music with the title of something previously published. He also builds wind-up mechanical birds that have to be seen to be believed, and even then you might not believe it. His music is sometimes tangentially similar to (and has some conceptual empathy with) folks like DAT Politics, V/Vm and Evol, but sometimes it's not similar to anything else at all. He's truly in his own world. There's more information here, but keep in mind that Vester has been known to make up aspects of his history just to entertain himself. So who knows what about him or his work is true. The intentional confusion and overload is part of the joy of Goodiepal aka Mainpal Inv. aka Gæoudjiparl. Just embrace it.

"Collected Works" first appeared in 2006 as a set of four CDRs released by Vuzkid, a label that was associated with V/Vm. Then it was released online as digital files until Vuzkid went away. And so, here is "Collected Works" one more time. It contains the Narc Beacon album (sometimes called Nag Nag Bacon for reasons only the Goodiepal knows), which was released in 2001 and then reissued a few times by Fonal, Ski-pp, Escho. It's his most accessible album by far, though many of the tracks seem to be unauthorized remixes of jingles for corporations he might have been doing work for at an advertising agency. Vester claims that this is his only actual album, but I'm not sure what he means by that. Disc 2 contains Rare Tracks, ostensibly containing songs from compilations and limited-edition vinyl but there's some misinformation going on. Some of the tracks are not the ones listed in the credits and others might not be Goodiepal at all. Disc 3 is Mort aux Vauches session for Dutch radio with a couple of tracks released on a 5" record, but then (if you try to make sense of his discography at Discogs) he's released so many records with the Mort aux Vauches title, I can't pretend to understand what each one means or how (or if) they relate to the original. The final disc contains some films of Goodiepal in action (you must watch those) plus images and text that may or may not make any sense to you. My suggestion is to soak it all in, do some research about the parts that you find interesting, watch the documentary about him embedded above, and get comfortable with the idea that no matter how much you think you get it, Vetser is messing with you somehow.

disc 1
disc 2
disc 3
disc 4