Once upon a time when every German workers’ dreams came true in the German Democratic Republic, where citizens were so perfectly defended by the inner security service that every seventh one was an informer. It was so democratic that the media was totally controlled by the communist state, and any private publishing was illegal. In Karl Marx-Stadt (aka Chemnitz) there was a really underground new wave electronic experimental label klangFarBe run by Frank Bretschneider from 1985 till 1989. It published only 8 cassette releases.

A double compilation LP with AG Geige, Kriminal Tanzkapelle, Frank Bretschneider and Stein Im Brett

will be released soon by Mannequin Records (Germany)

You can download a Karl Marx-Stadt underground V/A tape from the 80s

and there is a film about AG Geige.

Bretschneider today run Raster-Noton. It is meant to be a platform – a network covering the overlapping border areas of pop, art, and science. It has been emerged from the fusion of Rastermusic, founded by Olaf Bender (AG Geige) and Bretschneider (also was in AG Geige) in 1996, and the sublabel Noton, which was run by Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto). It realizes music projects, publications and installation works. The common idea behind all releases is an experimental approach – an amalgamation of sound, art, and design, which is not only apparent in the music, but also visible from the artwork and cover design. In music the label’s aesthetic focus is on rhythmic, minimal electronic music alternating between playful pop and introspection.

Keel Her / Claire Cottrill split cassette

Keel Her aka Rose Jayne Keeler-Schäffeler is a London based alien-obsessed hyperactive girl from Brighton. Makes high standard lo-fi sometimes noisy bedroom pop. And managed by Satan. In 2012 the godfather of lo-fi, and World Champion of DIY home recordings, R. Steevie Moore invited her to play together at his studio in Memphis. And she is in The Bin Bags where playing violin, keys and vocals. Just released their first EP on Permanent Slump Records. (The third song in this playlist is from them.) She said in an interview: Being a female musician: it’s really fun, but sometimes lonely. I’m an outsider, but I always have been, regardless.

Claire Cottrill is a very young girl from Boston (Massachusetts, US). With her guitar she makes music under the influence of sixties soul and r’n’b and Korn.

Split cassette on Third Floor Tapes (Ardmore – formerly Athensville -, Pennsylvania, US)

Scottish electronic musician Jonnie Common has gone to his kitchen and made an album using only noises what he has found there. Here is an album preview

He’s releasing the album on a set of four hand-made fridge magnets. Each one of these magnets is unique because they were all cut directly out of a stomach-churning 80s cookbook. He says: inside each set, I have even gone to the trouble (and believe me it was painstaking) of including the name of the dish from which each magnet was taken. I must stress that the combinations (or menus) were chosen for what looked good together rather than what would taste good together but I did spread it out so that every set includes 4 different types of dish. The categories are: soups, salads & starters, meat dishes, poultry dishes, fish dishes, vegetable dishes, supper dishes, savouries & snacks, puddings & desserts, cakes & baking.

Kitchen Synch is going to be released on Song, by Toad Records on May 9th.

SURF HARP plays – they say – fuzzy artcore. It is something weird eclectic funny pop music. It has started as a personal surfgaze project of Phil in Baltimore (Maryland, US), but

Chris: Aaron, Dennis, and I were recruited to perform the Galápagos EP songs live, and eventually Jeff was too, and we were just playing what was already there. Then, with playing new songs as a group, the material evolved differently, especially because we were playing live pretty often and tweaking the songs as we went along.

Their music is inspired by

Jeff: In terms of my bass playing and songwriting, I am inspired by a wide range of artists. Everything from Scott Walker to Pavement to Mingus to Aphex Twin. It is difficult to explain the direct effect that this inspiration has on my songwriting. I never say “I really like Neu!, how can I write a song like „Hallogallo”. But I guess the verses of  „Pomegranate” are a direct result of my love for Krautrock.

Phil: The biggest influences for me on the songwriting and tones of the album were probably Devo and Ween. Actually, there was one part during the mixing where I asked Mat to pitch shift the rototoms on “Pain Kills” to sound like the opening of Mayhem’s album Deathcrush.*

Moreover there are violin, cello and marimba on their first album which has been released on CD and cassette by Friends Records (US). When I was listening to it two bands came to my mind: Brattleboro (Vermont, US) art rockers Happy Jawbone Family and early Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

*From an interview on bmoreart. Listen to all from SURF HARP! I love them.

In my mind there are some cases when a band suddenly changed radically its style. For example when hc/punk Beastie Boys changed to hip-hop in 1983. When new wave synth pop Ministry became an industrial metal act around 87. When Metallica lost himself in 90. When one of the most thrilling thrash metal bands Voivod made a psychedelic rock album Angel Rat in same year. When industrial band Laibach became a successful cover band first, and then became a synth-pop band during the years gradually. And now here is the long awaited new Lantern album Black Highways and Green Garden Roads. And as if it were made by an other band.

After their sensational wild rock’n’roll album they have released an easy, almost distortion free, sometimes dark psychedelic folk rock album, „taking ideas from the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Carl Sagan, and Mikhail Bulgakov”. „It’s an exploration of the natural world and the cosmos, and a celebration of the wonderful, the serious, and the absurd.” They also said that it’s a result of many oversteeped pots of black tea.

It was recorded at The Bottle Garden, a home studio in Montreal filled with vintage gear and an array of instruments during 22 non-sequential days over a year and a half in 2013/14. More so than previous recordings, it is a collaborative effort born of studio improvising and collective exploration. They used new, unfamiliar instruments, such as organ and kalimba, and they experimented with tape loops and group harmonies.

Really fine songs – except for the cover version of Solomon Burke’s Cry To Me from 1962. It’s a mistake, just like the Rolling Stones’ version. (Listen to the original one.) The songs come Roy Orbison, 60s Rolling Stones, psychedelic era Voivod, and Illés (Hungarian beat legend) to my mind. And there is the bass theme of Dead Kennedys’ Holiday in Cambodia in the song We Are Here:

But the album is too long. And unfortunately badly edited, so it is hard to listen from first to last. It would have been better if there an LP with 10 songs and an EP with 4 (He Is A Pinball; Wait, Wait; Cry To Me; We Are Here Again) had been released.

Cassette by Fixture Records (Can) & LP by Sophomore Lounge (US)

Listen to it here

I also had speed metal years, but those were little different, but after came the speed years, and those were similar

Prostitutes – The Speed Metal Years C-30 by overview ltd

Åsa Söderqvist aka ShitKid from from the land of 6 hours workday aka Sweden

Oh Please Be A Cocky Cool Kid + 666

from debut EP by PNKSLM RECS (UK/SWE) on 1 April

old but cool experiments

Albrecht Schrader den wundervollen Pop-Pianisten aus der Hansestadt Hamburg, der aber schon seit einigen Jahren in der Domstadt Köln wohnt. Leben in der Großstadt, so der Titel seiner kommenden EP spannt mühelos den Bogen von Steely Dan über Prefab Sprout bis Erobique

taken from „Leben in der Großstadt” EP out on Staatsakt March 18 2016

Influences: Serge Gainsbourg. Claudine Longet. Burt Bacharach. Henry Mancini. Blumfeld. Jane Birkin. Scott Walker. Tom Waits. Rocko Schamoni. John Lennon. The Divine Comedy. Cole Porter. Morrissey. Bob Dylan. Francoise Hardy. Harry Nilsson. Ennio Morricone. Elliott Smith. Vince Guaraldi. Claude Debussy. Prefab Sprout.

Albrecht Schrader Live
12.04. Köln, Studio 672
13.04. Hamburg, Kleiner Donner
14.04. Berlin, Monarch

BRONZE. Crazy and twisted Neue Kraut Welle from San Fransisco. Sometimes like a lo-fi Jean-Michel Jarre. They were released by synt-pop label Not Not Fun, electro underground Enfant Terrible, and avantgarde RVNG Intl. A live album will be released this month by John Dwyer’s garage rock/punk label Castle Face Records (US)

Dwyers (Thee Oh Sees) said about them: Always drunk with mad skills. With dashes of John Carpenter, Silver Apples, Liquid Liquid, Birthday Party, Harold Grosskopf, Klaus Schultze, Cluster, and Brian Ferry with a field recorder taped to his tux jacket. Ultra bottom heavy dance beats a la Brian Hock. Super hand-wringing oscillations home brewed by Miles Friction and the ever-great Robert Spector delivering homilies from beyond the dimensional wall.

Bronze music more

FLAT WORMS – „Red Hot Sand” Debut 7″ EP ft. Will Ivy (Dream Boys, Wet Illustrated, Bridez), Justin Sullivan (Kevin Morby, the Babies) and Tim Hellman (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps). Limited 100 each gray and red vinyl, 300 black by Volar Records (US). Good enough

Russian band uSSSy originally played noise-rock with elements of blues, techno and black-metal. By the third album of the band they became a drum’n’guitar duo, and development of the band went in the direction of Middle Eastern music. The unique sound of the band is the result of use of a specially modified baritone guitar, which were mounted additional quarter-tone frets, just as those made by Middle Eastern instruments. In 2014 Artem has left the band. Pavel continuous to play by his own as Holy Palms.

A digital compilation album out now by Aussie label Tenzenmen: noise-rock with elements of blues, techno and black-metal and Middle Eastern tunes. Frenetic

All uSSSy albums

5 limited edition singles on 16 April by Superior Viaduct (US)

New York synth punk duo Suicide first 2 singles Cheree (1978) and Dream Baby Dream (1979)

Manchester punk band The Fall debut 7″ EP Bingo-Master’s Break-Out and the single The New Thing both from 1978

New York no wave trio DNA first and only single You & You from 1978

Cheree + The New Thing + You & You

buy all