Finders Keepers sub-label Cache Cache released Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik, a compilation of 1980s West German home recordings.
The project was headed up by Felix Kubin, who speaks on the conditions that spawned this odd music in the press release: “(The recordings) are eruptions out of the crater of a society that had reached a deadlock during the so-called German Autumn with its failed RAF movement.” Kubin then quotes Alfred Hilsberg, founder of German independent label ZickZack, who said: “In Germany there was nothing. There was no real musical culture. So the people here — encouraged by the punk movement in England — began to develop something of their own.”
Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik‘s 25 tracks…
320 kbps | 165 MB UL | MC ** FLAC
…span anything-goes post-punk, musique concrète and seamy pop. Members of DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses and Einstürzende Neubauten appear in previously unheard formations. Pots, pans, pneumatic drills and homemade synths are all used as musical instruments.
The music is wild, expressive, devoid of genre lines and truly innovative considering the technology most of these musicians were utilizing. Every recording is primitive in fidelity, opening up a vital transition in DIY culture that Germany was going through for over a decade to that point. The 80’s saw a lot of shifts in tonality for the new instrumentation releasing around the world and the affordability factor improved greatly in this shift. With instruments costing less, one can only assume the fidelity and tonal range would reflect this cheapness. It surely did and the artists who comprise Science Fiction Park Bundesrepublik: German Home Recording Tape Music of The 1980’s is a stunning examination of how these worlds into exotic yet cheaply constructed synths were flipped upside down to make something lasting and beautiful.