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CD
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TR 528CD
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The Wirtschaftswunder are European post-punk history. Formed in Limburg in 1980, the multinational band consisted of Czech-born guitarist Tom Dokoupil, Canadian keyboardist Mark Pfurtscheller, German drummer Jürgen Beuth (also in Die Radierer), and Italian singer Angelo Galizia. After their DIY milestone Salmobray, the band was signed to Polydor. Contrary to the aims of the record company, who planned to make a huge NDW act out of the band, the new (and more expensive) ways of record production just showed how special this band really was. A financial flop and artistically one of the strangest and most wonderful major debuts of all times.
"The eponymous title of the sophomore album by The Wirtschaftswunder sounds as if it should have been their debut disc. Nevertheless, the name is a good fit, this being the record which sees the band come to terms with their own distinctive sound, one which is completely different to the sum of their parts, as was the case on its predecessor Salmobray. Here, they have morphed into a funk band, albeit one without any intention of playing funk. This record was also their first on a major label, although Polydor do not appear to have weighed in on the creative process. The LP spawned just the one single -- 'Der große Mafioso' -- and zero NDW* hits. Whereas other label acts such as Hubert Kah or Fräulein Menke were busy crafting chart material with a New German Wave flavor, The Wirtschaftswunder (possibly aware of their stablemates' efforts) appeared unencumbered by the pressure to deliver conventional success. The major label influence was at least evident in the departure from the dim haziness of contemporary DIY studios for a production of dazzling sharpness. Cast in this light, The Wirtschaftswunder sound even stranger than in the more familiar environs of their insouciant debut. This might very well be the German music industry's boldest record ever, Ernste Musik (serious music) aside. Released in early 1982, with few words offered to contextualize matters, the record felt like a statement, an artistic representation of pop music laced with a range of alienating effects which lent it a remarkable precision. Perspective, expressiveness -- these are concepts that sit well with 'The Wirtschaftswunder'. The characteristic style, the air and, above all, the 'sonic mission' are reminiscent of the Junge Wilden or, to be more exact, the Mühlheimer Freiheit group of artists associated with them." --Frank Apunkt Schneider
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LP
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TR 528LP
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LP version. The Wirtschaftswunder are European post-punk history. Formed in Limburg in 1980, the multinational band consisted of Czech-born guitarist Tom Dokoupil, Canadian keyboardist Mark Pfurtscheller, German drummer Jürgen Beuth (also in Die Radierer), and Italian singer Angelo Galizia. After their DIY milestone Salmobray, the band was signed to Polydor. Contrary to the aims of the record company, who planned to make a huge NDW act out of the band, the new (and more expensive) ways of record production just showed how special this band really was. A financial flop and artistically one of the strangest and most wonderful major debuts of all times.
"The eponymous title of the sophomore album by The Wirtschaftswunder sounds as if it should have been their debut disc. Nevertheless, the name is a good fit, this being the record which sees the band come to terms with their own distinctive sound, one which is completely different to the sum of their parts, as was the case on its predecessor Salmobray. Here, they have morphed into a funk band, albeit one without any intention of playing funk. This record was also their first on a major label, although Polydor do not appear to have weighed in on the creative process. The LP spawned just the one single -- 'Der große Mafioso' -- and zero NDW* hits. Whereas other label acts such as Hubert Kah or Fräulein Menke were busy crafting chart material with a New German Wave flavor, The Wirtschaftswunder (possibly aware of their stablemates' efforts) appeared unencumbered by the pressure to deliver conventional success. The major label influence was at least evident in the departure from the dim haziness of contemporary DIY studios for a production of dazzling sharpness. Cast in this light, The Wirtschaftswunder sound even stranger than in the more familiar environs of their insouciant debut. This might very well be the German music industry's boldest record ever, Ernste Musik (serious music) aside. Released in early 1982, with few words offered to contextualize matters, the record felt like a statement, an artistic representation of pop music laced with a range of alienating effects which lent it a remarkable precision. Perspective, expressiveness -- these are concepts that sit well with 'The Wirtschaftswunder'. The characteristic style, the air and, above all, the 'sonic mission' are reminiscent of the Junge Wilden or, to be more exact, the Mühlheimer Freiheit group of artists associated with them." --Frank Apunkt Schneider
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LP
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TR 497LP
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LP version. Compilation with all singles, sampler contributions and rarities of the Limburg post-punk/neue welle/electro/leftfield pioneers The Wirtschaftswunder. Including the songs from the first EP Allein released in 1980 on Warning/Ata Tak and the songs from the uber-single Television/Kommissar (ZickZack, 1980). Essential compilation of one of the most important German bands of the '80s. "Anruf Schallplattenfirma" (Record company phone call): A little bit of fun. The first recording ... before Angelo. On the first demo tape, 1979. 1980: A year on the road as The Wirtschaftswunder for Tom, Jürgen and Mark... They still need a frontman. Mark finds Angelo in Zoom, a popular punk/new wave discotheque. It's the place to be, attracting punters from everywhere, the entire Rhine Main region. Hippies are the dominant force in Frankfurt at this time. Angelo auditions at one of our rehearsals. Tom and Mark had shared singing duties until then but without any great conviction. Angelo's bizarre, charming vocals are just what the group need. The band is complete. "Ratinger Hof": On stage at Ratinger Hof, Dusseldorf, three months later. With Fehlfarben and Östro 430. The stuff of legends. Clubs and labels from all over Germany have us in their sights. "Ata Tak": The height of summer. One Sunday, Frank Fenstermacher and Moritz R, Ata Tak label impresarios and members of Der Plan, arrive in Limburg. Their sports aeroplane touches down at the airfield in Elz. The Wirtschaftswunder sign their first record deal and deliver one EP: "Allein", "So ist es", "Politsong (don't listen)" and "Metall". "Der Kommissar and Television": We switch to ZickZack, a Hamburg label. Der Kommissar track is an adaption of the theme tune to a 1960s TV police drama series of the same name. Interrogation scenes are spliced together on a tape recorder. Sampling before there was such a thing. Angelo voices the murderer. The confession. "She was only a hippie girl." B-side: "Television". "Ich stehʼ auf Hagen" (I'm into Hagen): A gig at Neue Heimat in Hagen. At breakfast the following morning at the promoter's shared apartment, Wolfgang Luthe hands the group a cassette of his totally distorted screeching vocals. "Can you do anything with this?" Time for the cassette recorder again. Everyday noises and recordings in the finest musique concrete tradition. "Träum Was Schönes" (sweet dreams): Final track. Exit stage left. How we ended every concert. Auf Wiedersehen.
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CD
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TR 496CD
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Reissue of this milestone in European post-punk history, originally released in 1980. Formed in Limburg in 1980, multinational band The Wirtschaftswunder consisted of Czech-born guitarist Tom Dokoupil, Canadian keyboardist Mark Pfurtscheller, German drummer Jürgen Beuth (Die Radierer) and Italian singer Angelo Galizia. The Wirtschaftswunder sounded and still sound like no other band: danceable yet disturbing pop that 40 years on is still modern.
"It was June 1980, a punk festival at an independent youth center, hidden away in a Munich backyard. Three days solid, nothing but hard-edged punk. Early on the Sunday afternoon, shortly after dumplings so to speak, a few characters in pale suits and hats appeared, looking like a cross between Madness and the East German politburo. Word got around that they came from out in the sticks, the countryside, and all they wanted to do was play. The Wirtschaftswunder had, in all seriousness, driven five hundred kilometers to Munich . . . Once there, they sliced their way through the audience with their sheer presence, exuding self-confidence that was neither innate nor divine, but the pay-off for a clear-cut concept . . . The Wirtschaftswunder were never interested in conventional concerts or specific sounds, they were constantly engaged with the presence of genuinely diverse characters. Take Angelo's confused aura of a gastarbeiter (migrant worker) -- which was absolutely authentic. He came from Sicily and somehow ended up in a metal goods factory in Limburg. When he sang: 'Ich bin ein Analphabet' ('I am analphabetic', I couldn't help hearing: 'I'm an alphabet'), he really meant it. There was somebody who struggled with this strange German techno world, who didn't know: 'what does it all mean?'. Tom arrived with his family from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Mark landed in the German provinces all the way from Toronto. Together, they were a fulcrum for the 'theatrical process' as Tom called it, their artistic principle released in performance: Thunderer whistles, salutes, axe battles, taking angle grinders to metal, generally unsettling people. Tom's brother, the 'new wild' painter Jiri Georg Dokoupil, came up with much of the conceptual ammunition. None of which was the slightest bit hackneyed ? indeed, nothing like this had ever been seen before in a musical context . . . The interplay of characters becomes transparently clear on the first LP (1981). Not least in terms of the production, which is brilliant in its simplicity. Tom had a small 4-track studio in a cellar, but he performed wonders with it! Absolute state of the art; without compare, unless you were happy with throwing yourself into the jaws of the record industry. And this is why The Wirtschaftswunder are such a fantastically important band..." --Jürgen Teipel
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Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
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LP
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TR 496LP
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LP version. Reissue of this milestone in European post-punk history, originally released in 1980. Formed in Limburg in 1980, multinational band The Wirtschaftswunder consisted of Czech-born guitarist Tom Dokoupil, Canadian keyboardist Mark Pfurtscheller, German drummer Jürgen Beuth (Die Radierer) and Italian singer Angelo Galizia. The Wirtschaftswunder sounded and still sound like no other band: danceable yet disturbing pop that 40 years on is still modern.
"It was June 1980, a punk festival at an independent youth center, hidden away in a Munich backyard. Three days solid, nothing but hard-edged punk. Early on the Sunday afternoon, shortly after dumplings so to speak, a few characters in pale suits and hats appeared, looking like a cross between Madness and the East German politburo. Word got around that they came from out in the sticks, the countryside, and all they wanted to do was play. The Wirtschaftswunder had, in all seriousness, driven five hundred kilometers to Munich . . . Once there, they sliced their way through the audience with their sheer presence, exuding self-confidence that was neither innate nor divine, but the pay-off for a clear-cut concept . . . The Wirtschaftswunder were never interested in conventional concerts or specific sounds, they were constantly engaged with the presence of genuinely diverse characters. Take Angelo's confused aura of a gastarbeiter (migrant worker) -- which was absolutely authentic. He came from Sicily and somehow ended up in a metal goods factory in Limburg. When he sang: 'Ich bin ein Analphabet' ('I am analphabetic', I couldn't help hearing: 'I'm an alphabet'), he really meant it. There was somebody who struggled with this strange German techno world, who didn't know: 'what does it all mean?'. Tom arrived with his family from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Mark landed in the German provinces all the way from Toronto. Together, they were a fulcrum for the 'theatrical process' as Tom called it, their artistic principle released in performance: Thunderer whistles, salutes, axe battles, taking angle grinders to metal, generally unsettling people. Tom's brother, the 'new wild' painter Jiri Georg Dokoupil, came up with much of the conceptual ammunition. None of which was the slightest bit hackneyed ? indeed, nothing like this had ever been seen before in a musical context . . . The interplay of characters becomes transparently clear on the first LP (1981). Not least in terms of the production, which is brilliant in its simplicity. Tom had a small 4-track studio in a cellar, but he performed wonders with it! Absolute state of the art; without compare, unless you were happy with throwing yourself into the jaws of the record industry. And this is why The Wirtschaftswunder are such a fantastically important band..." --Jürgen Teipel
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Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
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CD
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TR 497CD
|
Compilation with all singles, sampler contributions and rarities of the Limburg post-punk/neue welle/electro/leftfield pioneers The Wirtschaftswunder. Including the songs from the first EP Allein released in 1980 on Warning/Ata Tak and the songs from the uber-single Television/Kommissar (ZickZack, 1980). Essential compilation of one of the most important German bands of the '80s. "Anruf Schallplattenfirma" (Record company phone call): A little bit of fun. The first recording ... before Angelo. On the first demo tape, 1979. 1980: A year on the road as The Wirtschaftswunder for Tom, Jürgen and Mark... They still need a frontman. Mark finds Angelo in Zoom, a popular punk/new wave discotheque. It's the place to be, attracting punters from everywhere, the entire Rhine Main region. Hippies are the dominant force in Frankfurt at this time. Angelo auditions at one of our rehearsals. Tom and Mark had shared singing duties until then but without any great conviction. Angelo's bizarre, charming vocals are just what the group need. The band is complete. "Ratinger Hof": On stage at Ratinger Hof, Dusseldorf, three months later. With Fehlfarben and Östro 430. The stuff of legends. Clubs and labels from all over Germany have us in their sights. "Ata Tak": The height of summer. One Sunday, Frank Fenstermacher and Moritz R, Ata Tak label impresarios and members of Der Plan, arrive in Limburg. Their sports aeroplane touches down at the airfield in Elz. The Wirtschaftswunder sign their first record deal and deliver one EP: "Allein", "So ist es", "Politsong (don't listen)" and "Metall". "Der Kommissar and Television": We switch to ZickZack, a Hamburg label. Der Kommissar track is an adaption of the theme tune to a 1960s TV police drama series of the same name. Interrogation scenes are spliced together on a tape recorder. Sampling before there was such a thing. Angelo voices the murderer. The confession. "She was only a hippie girl." B-side: "Television". "Ich stehʼ auf Hagen" (I'm into Hagen): A gig at Neue Heimat in Hagen. At breakfast the following morning at the promoter's shared apartment, Wolfgang Luthe hands the group a cassette of his totally distorted screeching vocals. "Can you do anything with this?" Time for the cassette recorder again. Everyday noises and recordings in the finest musique concrete tradition. "Träum Was Schönes" (sweet dreams): Final track. Exit stage left. How we ended every concert. Auf Wiedersehen.
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