Post-Punk, Coldwave/Goth and No Wave.

[Zeno Marx]

Are there any Work/Death aficionado here?  "The Grey Elk Plummets to Earth and Then is Lowered Beneath It", from the Tender Comrades album, has a very similar, if not exact, tonality or timbre to a big synth-pop hit of the 80s.  I can clearly hear the melody of that top-40 song, but the chorus, thus title, is right on the edge of my brain.  Maybe this is common knowledge or has been noticed by someone else.  It would save me some frustration if someone could tell me what that song is.

[Bloated Slutbag]

Hey! I really like this idea of a "Name That Tune (or Band)" thread.

My request may be for late 80s / early 90s Toronto-area heads only, but if anyone could help me identify the band in question that would be stupendous. I'd probably instantly regress to fourteen years old.

Do the following lyrics mean anything to anyone, delivered in an appropriately sneering/declaiming intonation:

We are through
Feeling sorry for you
You will do what you're told to

Kinda darkwave synthpop or something (sorry, not one for genres), but always loved the lyrics.

[tinnitustimulus]

I have an obsession with Neu Deustch Welle (German New Wave)

While I don't like things like Nina Hagen, a lot of these bands were a lot more aggressive and experimental acts, most famous being Einsturzende Neubauten, which is not really considered new wave. Another name I heard for this is Geniale Dilletanten, suggesting they were dilettantes rather than musicians (pretty much same attitude in no wave).

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft started in a more no wave direction in their first album, but later had a fairly simple set up of sequenced MS-20 and drums with frantic vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fiZVsKKV7Q

Sprung Aus Den Wolken is another favorite, had members of EN in it sometimes. The modulated vocals in this song remind of some sort of power electronics with skronky no wave guitars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEym8OuqYEE

I don't how to comment on Die Tödliche Doris, sometimes I really like them and sometimes they really get on my nerves and too arty for their own good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKe_pKqEaUU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPSfBY_lwg0

Also love:
Grauzone (Eisbaer!)
Front
Malaria!
Gorilla Aktiv
Kosmonautentraum
Palais Schaumburg
early Die Krupps
Sentimentale Jugend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Exp63Lo4QQ might as well count this as PE as well)

[Bloated Slutbag]

We are through
Feeling sorry for you
You will do what you're told to

Kinda darkwave synthpop or something (sorry, not one for genres), but always loved the lyrics.

Hmm. The above could be a band called Kitten With A Whip. There were a few projects revolving around the same few characters which spawned other thematically similar outlets like Die Screaming, Dogpile, and Pure - though more of an industrial-metal type thing, the latter in particular sounding a times like noisy Godflesh as I recall. I tend to associate this general sound with the north east States, Detroit, Chicago (and Toronto) areas...

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Rivals-Of-Medusa/release/3996231

...but I'd bet there were dogpiles of the same sort of shit floating around the globe thenabouts....

Here's a great piece of heaviness from Dogpile's Black Fag (1992)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpFInQM-Psc

(apologies, should probably be posting in one of the thousand-and-one Godflesh/industrial/metal threads, but honestly this shit's all the same to me.)

[P-K]

*I could use some recommendations/schooling on The Anti Group.

where to start, TAG/TAGC is a very divers project, many styles, relying heavily on science/occult/etc background info :-) all is GOOD imho.

my first exposure was he Broadcast Test 12", very close to later (electro) Clock DVA :
http://youtu.be/9HA2Bo2vXE4

'The Delivery' mini, strong early DVA vibe, wtf do you call this?
http://youtu.be/-JUqfH--meo

'Digitaria' album, tribal, scapes, early DVA, ....essential :
http://youtu.be/zSLBsoq15Zk
http://youtu.be/q4NXILz29dE
http://youtu.be/EKJmlP675qE

'Teste Tones' record 1 and 2 (or both on 1 cd), loops, heavy lows, insane highs, samples, structured, at their most clinical, this just goes beyond imho :
http://youtu.be/ZK760HtLEu4
http://youtu.be/9D0wwkAPCZg
http://youtu.be/QR1CyHbvJpc

'Burning Water' album : esotheric stuff, scapes, soundtrack work, good :
http://youtu.be/PUVaGJ-0DkE

far from 'hits' but they did 2 maxi's with more catchy stuff, Ha Zulu and Big Sex :
http://youtu.be/u-fvZ4oGCK8
http://youtu.be/nTQh0H45q_0

'ShT' mini album, more early-DVA-like ...
http://youtu.be/b6MqGj7nfZM

"Iso-Erotic Calibrations" album, another essential :
http://youtu.be/Srx8sG2tutw

their final release on Die Stadt, one long scape :
http://youtu.be/rC8UT7VOl6o

"Audiophile" is a good comp to get started ;-)

[Steve]

I listen to TAGc all the time, and agree that the "Audiophile" is a great place to start. "Digitaria" is a great piece of mid 1980's experimentia and still readily available on CD - it has a sample of Patrick Magee from the "Marat-Sade" ... it can do no wrong!
The release on Die Stadt is not TAGc though, it has nothing to do with Adi Newton or Jane Radion Newton but is a ruse by Andrew Mackenzie of Hafler Trio. I seem to recall they had a "fall out" of copyrights and payments etc so AM released this poor facsmilie of a TAGc release.

[Zeno Marx]

Thanks for the advice.  That Die Stadt situation sounds unsavory.

[P-K]

really didn't know the Die Stadt-situation....in their discography it is the less interesting

"In 2005, a maxi CD 'Psychoegoautocratical Auditory Physiogomy Delineated' was released as T.A.G.C. without Adi Newton's involvement or approval.[2]"

damn !

[post-morten]

I have an obsession with Neu Deustch Welle (German New Wave)

Yeah, I've had more than a passing dalliance with NDW myself. Problem is, even the more prominent bands from this scene were very hit or miss... few, if any, would maintain even a moderately high level over more than a couple of records. EN did of course, and maybe DAF on their first three albums, but who else? Then, as the story ususally goes, eventually NDW became nothing more than a label to slap on to watered-down new wave acts like Nena or Ideal. 

As for Sprung Aus Den Volken; the split LP with the Hypnotischer Krach project is one of my favorite industrial albums of all time, while History Of Electricity from a few years later is shite.

Another huge favorite is Abwärts (also sporting members of EN in early lineups), before they went down the Toten Hosen route. I think their Koma/Amok LP is really one of the pinnacles of NDW, a fantastic documentation of the zeitgeist that permeated this period, that feverish art/punk/experimentalism crossover... functioning much like Swell Maps A Trip To Marineville around the same time in the UK. This live clip is incredible, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57uI8RNhYk0

Also love:
Grauzone (Eisbaer!)

From Switzerland, right? Often lumped in with the NDW crowd though. But good never the less.

Malaria!

Never could get in to them. Of the all-chick groups Xmal Deutschland were always my favs, before they sold out. I admit to having had a crush on Anja Huwe...

Kosmonautentraum

I will never forget buying their Juri Gagarin LP in a sort of punk squat record shop in Kreuzberg, upon my first visit to Berlin in -83.

early Die Krupps

Yep, before they became yet another metal/industrial hybrid.

Are there any good books documenting this era of German music? I have the Freeman brothers The Crack In the Cosmic Egg krautrock encyclopedia, which also covers a lot of NDW and early german industrial (Cranioclast, P16.D4, Strafe FR, etc), but would like to read a more focused attempt on NDW.

Btw, please don't speak bad about Nina Hagen. I used to listen a lot to her, and still would count myself in as an admirer.