INTERRUPTIONS #3
Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German home-recording tape scene #1
Curated by Felix Kubin
In the late 1970s, the German music scene was shaken up by a virtual explosion of new bands that sounded radically different to anything that had come before. They played music that was experimental, playful, absurd, minimalist and astute, with lyrics that were sung – or more commonly screamed – exclusively in German.
Appalled rather than enthralled by this new expressionism, the record industry initially showed no interest in these groups, so new platforms had to be set up in order to spread the virus. Small companies like ZickZack and Ata Tak started to release records by these young artists who were springing up like mushrooms. The independent record label was born.
The spirit of this new movement – later branded Neue Deutsche Welle – emerged from a collision between the self-confident attitude of punk, the legacy of Germany’s electronic avant-garde and a belief in the imminence of an atomic apocalypse. In his book “Als die Welt noch unterging” (When the world was still going to end), Frank Apunkt Schneider describes this despair as a joyful dance on the edge of the volcano, which is what underlies the unusual music that you will hear in this programme.
Ràdio Web MACBA's Contribution
What is Radio Art? What are we doing? Ben Vida, Felix Kubin, Goodiepal, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jon Leidecker, Tetsuo Kogawa, Chris Cutler and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros give their own answer to these ontological question.
A short history of the audio cassette
Following with Felix Kubin’s line of research on the creative underground tape scene, in this brief podcast we revisit the origins of the format with former Philips employee Wim Langenhoff.
Translated lyrics
A compilation of the lyrics and the English translations of the Deutsche Kassettentäter music selection by Felix Kubin.
Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German home-recording tape scene #2
ZickZack label founder Alfred Hilsberg and author Frank Apunkt Schneider talk about the cultural, social and political conditions in Germany at the end of the seventies that gave rise to a radical new type of music, which Schneider describes as 'the undirected aggression of the freed noises'.