Another eclectic song for this series I found in a deep corner of my hard drive. 40 years ago German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten released their third album Halber Mensch. With their noise music, the Neubauten hit the nerve of the times and became Germany's most important representatives of music that knew no commercial boundaries in the 1980s. While their first two albums were characterised by improvised noises that were artfully put together, their third album offers a shift towards more rhythmic music. With Yü Gung they move towards the dancefloor with a strong rhythm and, as always, Blixa Bargeld's cryptic lyrics, which are difficult for me to understand. No wonder Adrian Sherwood has given this song a remix that is rather untypical for him.
After I typed down my yesterday's post where I wrote down my fears about what could happen in Europe when we are not able and willing to stop a new war in eastern Europe I came back to some songs that accompanied me during the last decades. Sand is a song originally recorded by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood in 1968 and one of the most underrated songs of this era. In 1985 German experimental rock group Einstürzende Neubauten by Blixa Bargeld made a cover version in the tradition of Nick Cave and the Bad Seed where he played guitar for a long time. Both versions were songs I can listen to almost every time.
It was three years ago when a German electronic duo surprised me with an album that is still on rotation in my house. A few days ago they released their second record Uhrwerk Orange. When they had on their first album tracks that impressed me with their hypnotic sounds I looked forward what will be the next. They didn't copy their style another time and moved forward to a trip through Krautrock and electronic adventures. If her first album was quite unusual and eclectic, they have gone with her second album still 1 step more strictly. It sounds like Einstürzende Neubauten doped on Valium. Long songs with endless loops From percussion and bass dominated tracks alternate with almost already folky sounds. It can be an 80 minutes trip into space if you have a similar affection to spacey sounds. I saw them live a few month ago in a small club and have to say that they are worth to be seen on stage.
If I think about Japanese music first thing that comes up was J-Pop a very special genre of chart orientated music. I remember this kind of music when I visited Japan seven years ago. Listening to radio stations or going for music TV you will always see this crazy dressed kids moving to just the same sound. After listening to a few songs I couldn't here any difference. But always played loud so that you feel like being in patchinko hall (it's like an amusement hall filled with one arm bandits and the music played in the background was like on an Motörhead concert). The other side of Japanese music is a sophisticated one, played by bands like Yellow Magic Orchestra. Otherwise there is a big heavy metal scene over there.
I got the news that a female Japanese artist released a new record after a longer time of absence. Hiroki Moritani aka Phew started in the late 70's when punk reached Japan and everyone was possible to start a band of his own. Aunt Sally was famous over there in these days but to be honest I've never heard of them before. Very soon she started to walk on her own paths. What means that she decided to go a more avant-garde way. She collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto and he showed her the way to Cologne. Her first album was recorded in Conny Plank's studio and produced by Krautrock legends Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit which also played on different tracks. It is a different kind of listening to this psychedelic inspired sounds and Hiroki's voice but the often I listen to the more I like.
A few years later she returned to Cologne for her second record now collaborating with artists from Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft and Einstürzende Neubauten.
These days more and more German rap/rap-rock artists appear promoting their upcoming albums with new songs. A lot of them are not worth to write about or even promote them. So that I am not a huge fan in German HipHop I think that I should promote this. It is the new song from Casper a son of an American soldier and a German wife. He was in this genre for over ten years and he has a very striking voice for an HipHop-artist trained in several punk bands in during his early days. What is new with this song is the weird collaboration with Dagobert (an Austrian singer who calls himself a renovator of Schlager), Blixa Bargeld who is well known by his collaboration with Nick Cave and Einstürzende Neubauten und the German avant psych-pop band Sizzar. Not sure if I should call it HipHop or rock but I like this aggressive touch in their music. The video is more than disturbing and violent but congenial to this song.
Back in the mid 80's it was a fine line between New Wave and electronic/industrial music. Not every fraction loved the other. But one all could agree was Frank Tovey aka Fad Gadget. He was one of the first who combined synthesizer sounds with the sound of found objects like bottles. Germany's Einstürzende Neubauten was another one and therefore it is reasoned that they had a guest appearance on Collapsing New People. It is one of the songs that coined the sound of the early 80's. Typing these words I remember one Fad Gadget's performances I was lucky enough to watch them live.
Two days ago I listened to a radio feature about Alexander Hacke former guitarist and bass player of Einstürzende Neubauten maybe which had a massive influence on electric music. Featuring his new biography he talked a lot of the times in the early 80s while he lived door to door to David Bowie and Iggy Pop. It was a very interesting and entertaining hour listen to him and his stories and I think a go out to buy his book. This are some songs they played based on Hacke's own choice.
These days Robert Plant, the voice of Led Zeppelin, released a new record. The release was announced since a few weeks and since this time I try to get a listen to it. I don't know the reason why I look forward to a release of a 66 year old man that must have his best times behind. Probably for sentimental reasons or because he's a singer that impressed me sometimes. There must be reasons why he played Glastonbury this year - and the videos from his appearance wasn't worse. Anyway, here's his latest single. The guitar was borrowed by Tom Waits and the drums sounds a bit like Einstürzende Neubauten and Robert Plants voice fits to this steady rhythm. A classic if would be released 30 years before.
How he combines traditional Arabian music with a mystic sound you can see here:
Arrived last night back in Germany after a long travel but with enough power to go back to office next week again. I had a relaxed time and now it will be business as usual. This means that I will post regular and my series will continue. Today I will feature a band from the glory days of post punk. Abwärts was formed in the late 70s in Hamburg by Frank Z. and FM Einheit (later member of Einstürzende Neubauten). Their first record Amok-Koma is still a milestone in German punk music. Their songs are dominated by a leading guitar in the tradition of Wire. Short songs with many influences (even Turkish elements) made them great. I saw them in a small club in Stuttgart in 1980 as a support act from The Cure. Their physical presence on stage was very impressive and Robert Smith had to give it's best to beat them. The concert ended with a session by members of both bands playing standards from the early punk era. Never will forget this fantastic concert. Listening to this songs again inspire me to grab out more of this old stuff and listen again. Maybe it's sentimental but anyway - it is still worth to look back at this time and the music we listened to.
Rio Reiser was a German singer, musician, composer and actor. Born in Berlin in 1950 he started his muical career as singer and writer of 'Ton, Steine, Scherben' a former punk and anarchy band in the early 1970s in Berlin. From their background in the local squatter scene they made a lot of simple songs but all within a message 'Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht (Destroy what makes you sick)', 'Keine Macht für Niemand (No power to Nobody). At that time he had his coming out to his homosexuality. Being bored only known as a political band they moved away from Berlin to a farmyard in Northern Germany. They changed their music into more melancholic sounds added with very personal lyrics. At the end of the decade they have seen their financial disaster in fact of a big tour through Germany without a professional management. A new management under the guidance of Claudia Roth (now a leading member of the German Green Party) tried to help them get rid of their ows. But with less success and the band dissolved in 1985.
With the legacy of liabilities about 100.000 Euro Rio Reiser started a solo career. Produced by Annette Humpe produced his first solo record and it became on of the best selling German records of this year (included his hit singles 'König von Deutschland' and 'Junimond'). After this successful record he was one of the top acts on several open-air festivals in the following years. Most of them festivals had a political background. If it was against racism in Germany (east German skinheads burned houses of asylum seekers) or the building of new nuclear power plants, he joined the initiators. In the early 1990s he was seen as a actor in several TV-movies - mostly as a disenchanted political activist of the 70s generation.
Surely knowing his rocking songs I have a penchant for his ballads. Not that he had a great voice but the words he sung were true and gave me a feeling that there is someone who expresses his personal feelings in a song. I am glad, that I saw him once live in Stuttgart in the early 1990s. It was a great concert at all with a very familiar atmosphere. To watch and listen to him when he only played his songs playing the piano was awesome. He died in 1996 at the age of 46 on circulatory failure and internal bleeding. Some word about Rio Reiser from Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten, Bad Seeds) that I found in the internet:
'Ive never heard someone singing in Germany and seen the like Rio was able, within seconds of an intimate relationship, almost a love affair, set up with each of his listeners. Singing in public is a peculiar jobs: One can the blood is withdrawn from the people, like a vampire swallow, or you can turn it and return. Rio Reiser exuded strength and power he got from the audience, and he gave it back. Charisma is a skill that can not be learned, and it has nothing to do with mere image and stage presence. Even with a banal song he could sing any particular word so that a cold-running down the back. "
Now my vacation comes to an end. That's why I have allowed myself a classical shave with the razor. If you travel through Asia, relaxation is very often offered to you in the form of massages, facial treatments or spa. For me is the biggest relaxation if I can get shaved. In the chair burst to take and to get shaved in well-tried kind with is simply miraculous, because this tradition threatens to become extinct with us.
Here is a song from the seventies originally performed by the great Lee Hazlewood. This version is from a German punk/industrial band from the end of last century. For me it is more than a cover - it is an interpretation.
