AUDIAC

 

CIRCLE

 

CLUSTER

 

CPT. HOWDY

      

DÄLEK

 

Dälek combine menacing downbeats with industrial-like eruptions of sound. The result is cold and drilling HipHop with an affinity to Illbient. The music is constantly threatening to explode its track-format (which it ultimately does not do). Its driving forces are rage, disappointment and aggression which have been channelled into beats and sounds, but the music that comes of it barely manages to discipline itself. A fascinatingly intensive, yet aloof-sounding soundtrack for the metropolis.

DIETER MOEBIUS

Dieter Moebius ist eine Legende der deutschen Rockmusik: ein Krautrock- Pionier! Moebius war seit Ende der 60er Jahre Mitglied der einflussreichen Elektronik-Tüftler-Gruppe Cluster, aus der in den 70er Jahren - durch den Eintritt von Michael Rother von Neu - die Formation Harmonia hervorging. Cluster waren Wegbereiter einer elektronischen Ambient-Musik, ein Interesse, das sie mit Brian Eno (Roxy Music) teilten, mit dem sie einige Album einspielten. Darüber hinaus hat Moebius mit dem legendären Studiozauberer Conny Plank etliche Platten veröffentlicht, um in jüngster Zeit mehr und mehr mit hypnotischen “Soundscapes” als Solo-Artist in Erscheinung zu treten. Sein aktuelles Album ist auf dem Klangbad-Label erschienen.

ECTOGRAM

Often portrayed as post-tonal dronedelic psych-pop noiseniks, Ectogram create music that on first acquaintance appears to conjure up the sound of flowers bursting into bloom, the smell of freshly ground coffee and the feeling of angels walking over graves all at once. Upon further immersion, however it becomes apparent that Ectogram are the very source of these sensations rather than a mere depiction of them, casting their wholly new art way above the realms of both aesthetic and social considerations and into a rarified world of pure being. Ectogram laugh, albeit fondly, at humankind's current underachieving perception of art as entertainment, social critique or aestheticism and present you with art as a tool for evolution. Their music is the seed from which the whole future culture will grow. 

FAUST

When Faust first emerged in 1970/71, the rock landscape wasn't yet electrified. It was, however, dominated by 15 years of Anglo-American build-up. Working in parallel with, yet quite separately from, Krautrock contemporaries like Can, Faust cloistered themselves away and set about improvising and reconstructing modern music as if from nothing. With their huge, primordial riffs they seemed to be tapping into the molten lava of some prehistoric rock era; simultaneously, their use of synthesizers, eddying in huge, black sustained waves of intensity, pointed to a future that we have perhaps still to arrive at.

Faust's music exists outside the small timescale of rock/pop/electronica, above and beyond its shifting trends and dialectical motions. So when they reformed in the Nineties, this wasn't the usual case of diminished returns to former glories. They picked up where they left off, spraying off at improvisational tangents, rumbling and riffing with all the natural, torrential force of an underground river of bass. It's as if the energy of Faust has always been with us, even when they personally were not. This was most in evidence on 1999's Ravvivando (a word which means reviving, quickening pace). And now in 2002, with the music landscape fully electrified, the myriad progeny of Faust pay tribute to one of the great sources of avant-garde rock with Freispiel, an album of remixes.
 

ILSE LAU

   

 Ilse Lau are from Bremen, a city of ships and sailors. They have been around for a long time and with a new album and a new label they signed to Autopilot. Ansgar Wilken, Henning Bosse and Thomas Fokke form one of the few good rockbands left in Germany. Their music is forward, edgy and at the same time groove orientated, while they still manage to keep enough pop in their songs so that they become earworms. The horn arragements on their albums are mindblowing, it just adds the last missing bit to their music. Fans of the "Ilses" (as the call their band affectionately), have often been take by surprise by their manoevres. Open, almost translucent rock belongs to their broad musical repertoire as well as twisted melodies and harmonies.

ADRIANO LANZI & OMAR SODANO

Adriano Lanzi and Omar Sodano were both born in Rome in the beginning of the Seventies. They had been knowing each other for a long time while playing - separately - in a number of bands active in the rock underground of their hometown, later being involved in live and studio sessions for singer-songwriters and west-african griots, sound engineering, audio-video postproduction, live music to silent movies and installations. Around 1997 they began to shape a project together, recording improvisations with different guest musicians, and making their own experiments with electronics. In 1999 the two fields (electronics and improvised music) were mixed in Emancipazione, a CD-r collage which displayed a variety of musical landscapes, somehow in the Faust Tapes vein. Faust keyboard-player (and Klangbad label boss) Hans Joachim Irmler's appreciation of that 50 minutes audio cut-up led up, in time, to their contribution to the Faust-remix album Freispiel, (2002) with the dismembering and rebuilding of Carousel II. And more recently to their debut album La Vita Perfetta, where they played all the instruments except the winds, performed by three friends from the folk and free jazz scenes of Rome: Renato Ciunfrini, Ersilia Prosperi and Federico Fabrizzi. In their present live-set they are often helped by Anadi Mishra, who puts his hands on a vast collection of percussion instruments from all around the world.

KLANGBAD V/A

   

THE NIGHTINGALES

The Nightingales was formed by former members of Birmingham, England's original punk group The Prefects. With an ever fluctuating line-up based around lyricist/singer Robert Lloyd, the band recorded a bunch of critically acclaimed singles and three albums, plus many radio sessions for John Peel. They also regularly toured the UK and Northern Europe as headliners and supporting acts as diverse as Bo Diddley and Nico, before splitting up in the late 80's. The Nightingales reformed infrequently before kicking off again in earnest in Spring 2004 with Lloyd being joined by original Prefect Alan Apperley. After fucking about with various wastrels, precious sorts and mercenaries (plus teen guitar sensation Matt Wood and Volcano Bear's Aaron Moore) the groups current line-up features Lloyd, Apperley, ex Pram drummer Daren Garratt, guitarist Christine Edwards (from Christy and Emily) and Andreas Schmid (from Faust Studio) on bass. Since reforming the group have been more productive than ever – releasing five 7” vinyl singles and three albums, touring the UK, mainland europe and the United States several times and recording numerous radio sessions in England and America. In March 08 the group recorded a new album 'Insult to Injury' with Hans Joachim Irmler of Faust. This record, the 'Gales best yet, will be released in February 2009 on Klangbad and will be their fourth album in the last couple of years.

NIŠTA NIJE NIŠTA

       

 

NUFA

 

 Nackt geboren ("born naked") - this implies innocence, frankness and vulnerability. Given these attributes and their young age, nufa from Ulm have managed to come quite a long way within the music industry. They infuse popular culture with content and meaning which are a far cry from the obvious. OK, these five musicians - all of them around the age of 20 - have inhaled the spirit of the "Hamburger Schule" and all the others who built their music on the school's foundation. On the other side, nufa know how to pick the most important shards from the archaeological field of popular culture. But already on their debut album, the birth of something new becomes apparent.

Two years ago, Hans-Jochim Irmler, founding member of the legendary band FAUST had seen these youngsters play live. And he heard something within their 2nd hand rock they played then, something special, a tender sapling in a torrential mainstream. So they spent several weeks at Irmler's recording studio. But when the time had come to release their efforts, they had moved on so far that they decided to scrap the old recordings and begin afresh. Thus they pressed the reset-button and now, one year later, we encounter a band who has reinvented themselves completely. Born naked.

Nackt Geboren is the snapshot of a band that is still young, but who have the potential of turning music scene (well, at least the German) upside down. Together with producers Irmler and Ingo Vauk, they managed to preserve a good part of their live energy in these recordings. The opener "Schweinehund" (one's "weaker self" is of canine descent in the German language) already slashes his teeth deep into the listeners and by the time you've progressed to "Generation was?" ("Generation What?") you know that this... is it. This is not about retro sounds, this is not about rhymes, this is simply... it. Period. These guys are hanging on to their music for dear life. nufa don't want to be nice - at that stage in life you just cannot when you've got something to say. They grind their axes quite literally on romantic pianos, their lyrics are so sharp they seem to attack your tympani, and in between those singalong choruses, you receive a gentle punch in the stomach and your conscious gets a good shaking.

Singer and lyricist Jacob Schneikart is dashing out lyrics which on first hearing make you want to carve them in stone. They just seem to be so true for what you hear and see every day. He manages to pinpoint the attitude of his generation in a detailed still life. Kitsch is ok with him, but deep feelings are also allowed - he sings about love in all stages of decline (and who at his age wouldn't?), about the nights pickled in alcohol and the heightened sensibilities of the day after, the feeling of being trapped in a world moving too fast. But still, he manages to infuse all this with a strong shot of optimism, defiant but honest. The music on which he spreads his lyrics consists of sturdy beats, analogue keyboard landscapes of cinemascope dimensions, while the guitar oscillates between, well, almost everything from scratchy riffs to Bebop. But where Charlie Parker & Co. had to press their music into the three minute plus-mould of the shellac era, nufa's songs take their time. They are long distance runners whose ideal training ground are half hour-long improvisations. But with "In den Tag" ("Into The Day") you can also find a classical hit quickie while "Perlen" ("Pearls") might even make you think of Syd Barrett. It's all in here. And when after 55 minutes the band ventures into the terretory of their mentors with a 13minute outing, you just know that you're bound to hear more from this band.

OLE LUKKØYE

     

Ole Lukkøye are part of the Russian underground. The band was formed by Boris Bardash and Andrej Lavrinenko in St. Petersburg in 1989. With the release of their second album "Toomze", the band showed the high ambition they aspired to: It's a concoction of British ArtRock, musical influences from all parts of the former Soviet Union and elements of ambient and trance which makes this music so intriguing. The group fuses traditional Russian styles (for example that of the Tuva-region in southern Siberia) with current western rhythms and sounds. The result, a dark and shamanistic psychedelic trance rock with much percussion and many acoustic instruments, opens a door between east and west. Ole Lukkøye knew the early albums of Faust, which found their way into the Russian music scene and acquired a cult following there. Thus the contact was established and after a meeting, the two parties agreed that Ole Lukkøye's fourth album Crystal Crow Bar was to be produced at Faust's studios in the spring of 2000. The result of this collaboration is no less mystic and enchanting than the band's preceding LPs.

MARKKU PELTOLA

    

Have you met Markku Peltola? No?! Well, maybe you have but cannot remember. Which is probably his problem as well, at least according to the script - Peltola played the main character in Aki Kaurismäki's prize-winning film "The Man Without A Past". After having been beaten up and proclaimed D.O.A., a man simply named "M" gets up from his hospital bed and walks out into the world just like that. In the course of the film, "M" will discover his talent for welding, his love for a woman working in the salvation army, and an old jukebox, with the help of which he will exert an immense influence on the local music scene. Cool guy. (Rolf Jäger)

PERMANENT FATAL ERROR

Olivier Manchion is anything but an unknown player on the international guitar music scene. Apart from taking part in innumerable projects, Manchion has recorded several albums with french cult band Ulan Bator. A short while ago, he got the idea of expanding his solo project PERMANENT FATAL ERROR into a band. He went looking for additional musicians, found three and took them into the studio in spring 2003 to record the album you now hold in hands titled Law Speed.
PERMANENT FATAL ERROR are in no hurry. They take their time. Most of the songs on their debut longplayer are downtempo and glide through the scenery extremely laid back. In spite (or maybe because) of this fact, the music of Law Speed is exceedingly powerful. This is due to its lucidity, which is at the core of this music. The transparent as well as intelligent arrangements have been put into practice with utmost accuracy - each sound and every beat is in exactly the right place.
In addition to that, it may be said that PFE crane at no experimental obstacle - from dissonant organ drones to a free jazz trumpet solo lasting several minutes, lots of unexpected events happen on Law Speed. However, all of these outbursts are subtly woven into the bands precisely executed rock-structures. With this, PFE open up new possibilities for the sound of guitar music in the 21st century.
The prominent characteristic of all the tracks (most of which are instrumentals) are their short, repetitive patterns. Their structure, which is always kept simple, is nimbly imbued with a rhythm provided by very accurate arrangements of bass and drums. PFE sound warm, melodious and resourceful. The band surprises its listeners with electronic sounds and a very sonorous steelstring-sound.
Law Speed was recorded at URS Studios in south Italy in co-operation with French sound engineer Lionel Darenne, whose work experience includes among other things a two-year stint in Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. The typical and easily identifiable acoustic environment of the drums puts the listener under the illusion of being in the same room as the band while listening to this record.
This highly aesthetic production is only one reason why Law Speed is a real adventure in sound - and not only for guitar fans.

THE PETTY THEFTS

With 'Smoke & Mirrors,' Klangbad presents the debut album from the Petty Thefts. This indie record contains musical elements from the last 40 years, yet is both relevant and modern.  Frontmen Frank Wegling (from Cleveland, Ohio) and Andrew McGinn (born in Bournemouth, UK), met in 2002, in the south German town of Ulm. After many previous  musical excursions, Frank found in Andrew his musical foil, and it was quickly clear that they wanted to leave their mark in the music world. Together they began to create a sound that would continue the work of artists such as the Beatles and the Small Faces. The two songwriters would also incorporate such diverse influences as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Dickens. Soon enough, other instruments came into the blend. The songs of Frank Wegling are enhanced by half an orchestra, with violins, cello, flute, and trumpet appearing in various combinations.

S/T

 

S/T from Frankfurt am Main are really a treat to listen to. They combine the more melodious aspects of early Kraftwerk's sound with monotone and hypnotic loops. A far away voice sings in bizarre lyrics in barely discernible German. They abduct the listener into their very own (and very beautiful) musical spheres. This is truely cosmic music!