[microsound-announce] New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #5. Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German home-recording tape scene #2.

[Radio Web MACBA]

*INTERRUPTIONS #5. Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German
home-recording tape scene #2.

Curated by Felix Kubin*

Featuring interviews with Alfred Hilsberg and Frank Apunkt Schneider

Link: http://bit.ly/oRtfAZ

*Summary:*

With the foundation of his label ZickZack in 1979, *Alfred Hilsberg* rapidly
became a key figure in the booming German independent music scene, and even
came to be known as the 'Punkpapst' (punk pope). ZickZack released records
by groundbreaking bands such as Die Toedliche Doris, Einstürzende Neubauten
and Palais Schaumburg who would become 'triggers' for the new movement –
just before it was commercialised by the mainstream industry. In his first
English radio interview ever, Hilsberg talks about the dawn of the Neue
Deutsche Welle (German New Wave), a term that he had introduced to readers
of the influential music magazine 'Sounds'. His column 'Neuestes
Deutschland' was met by such an enthusiastic response that he was eventually
'attacked by 20, 30, 40 cassettes per day coming in from all areas of
Germany'.

Hilsberg and his younger colleague *Frank Apunkt Schneider* often use the
term energy when they try to describe the anger, angst and dynamism of the
Kassettentäter scene. Schneider, pop theorist and member of the Vienna-based
artist group monochrom, regularly contributes essays and articles to the
magazines testcard, Zonic and Skug. In his book Als die Welt noch unterging*
(When the World Was Still on the Verge of Downfall), an encyclopaedic
topology of the German New Wave underground, he sums up the radicality of
that music in a nutshell with the phrase 'Die ungerichtete Aggression der
befreiten Geräusche' (the undirected aggression of the freed noises). Never
before had there been such a high level of experimentation and playfulness
in German pop music.

Both Hilsberg and Schneider consider 1980 to mark the start of a new era in
which 'the old order was not valid anymore and a new one hadn't yet been
found' (Schneider). In this cultural vacuum, under the looming threat of a
possible nuclear war and squeezed between opposing ideologies, everything
became possible. Arts, music, literature, film and humour had to adapt to
the monstrosity of the political momentum.

The words of Hilsberg and Schneider are illuminated by fragments of a
historic 1983 recording: sitting in their kitchen, the notorious
Kassettentäter* Armin Hofmann, Klaus Schmidbauer and Handke
Hesselbach*discuss the current state of the underground tape scene.
Their final
conclusion is clear and simple: a new movement is necessary.


Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German home-recording tape scene
#2: http://bit.ly/oRtfAZ
Related info: http://bit.ly/pQUAET
MP3: http://bit.ly/rkVaAy


Deutsche Kassettentäter. The rise of the German home-recording tape scene
#1: http://bit.ly/n3aN7s
Felix Kubin @ Ràdio Web MACBA: http://bit.ly/e0iR0F

Follow us at http://twitter.com/Radio_Web_MACBA
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