[engl] The Berlin project Sprung Aus Den Wolken was part of the "Geniale Dilletanten" movement in the early 1980s, along with Einstürzende Neubauten and Mechanik Destrüktiw Komandöh. The band first released an EP on ZickZack in 1981, followed by further releases on the band's own record label Faux Pas in 1982 and 1983, then on the French outlet Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier until 1991. The track Pas Attendre was part of the soundtrack of Wim Wender's movie Der Himmel Über Berlin and thus became an underground hit. Bureau B is thrilled to now re-release the debut EP under the title "1981 West Berlin" including additional songs from the band's early days, which have been carefully remastered from the original cassettes.

[engl] The Berlin project Sprung Aus Den Wolken was part of the "Geniale Dilletanten" movement in the early 1980s, along with Einstürzende Neubauten and Mechanik Destrüktiw Komandöh. The band first re- leased an EP on ZickZack in 1981, followed by further releases on the band's own record label Faux Pas in 1982 and 1983, then on the French outlet Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier until 1991. The track Pas Attendre was part of the soundtrack of Wim Wender’s movie Der Himmel über Berlin and thus became an underground hit. Founder of the band Kiddy Citny is also a painter. His paintings of the Berlin Wall have been exhibited around the world and are now in private collections in the US, France and Japan. Bureau B is pleased to finally make the long out-of-print, self-titled album from 1982 available again. Carefully remastered, with reconstructed original artwork, numerous photos and liner notes by Alexander Hacke.

[engl] 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.

[engl] Do not adjust your sets. Take a step back from the tracking. This is the sound of Germany's musical youth let loose on cheap synths and pawnshop guitars. A record of a disparate scene of squat pop-stars, art-school upstarts and committed non-musicians who redefined German music in the first half of the 1980s.

[engl] For their second foray into the fringes of German pop, Bureau B delve deeper than before, raiding cassette culture, 7" obscurities and overlooked album cuts to further frame this free-thinking strain of sonic expression. Starting the count from punk’s year zero, this set sees a newly liberated generation get weird and wild with anything they could lay their hands on, delivering demented, detuned and disorienting tracks brimming with DIY spirit. Where their kosmische predecessors preferred immersive, expansive compositions, these artists opted for immediacy, quickly capturing one idea before moving on to the next. Exploiting advances in home recording to say outside of industry confines, these art-school extroverts and commune drop outs often came together in unplanned collaborations and one off projects, capturing their whole creative lifespan on one side of a C45. As such, there’s a youthful charm to the sounds found on this compilation – an infectious combination of energy, expression and naivety running though each unlikely melody. This shift in approach and outlook even informed established acts, as evidenced by the perverse pop curiosities from Cluster and Moebius & Beerbohm lurking on the line up beside unreleased and unremembered gems from the likes of Maria Zerfall and E.M.P. Once again those expert selectors at Bureau B have done the hard work, digging deep to deliver a disparate, different and dissident side of German Pop Music. All you have to do is press play. The sparse drum machine of ALU’s »Aludome« opens proceedings, laying the foundation for wavy guitar chords and simple melodies on this tender 1980 composition, which only came to light in 2005. From there we sink into the watery electronics, free jazz bass and abstract guitars of Detlef Diederichsen charmingly abrupt »Pissnelke 2000«, before Maria Zerfall moves us into the shadows with the dark and punkish dirge »Der Mond«, a haunting track with double tracked and distorted spoken vocals. Butzmann / Kapielski’s avant-dance masterpiece »Do The VoPo« diverts us to the dance-floor, where the oddball synth sounds and skewed sampler vox of Rüdiger Lorenz’ »Francis & Friends« traps us in a strange slow motion groove. The tempo raises via E.M.P.’s dubbish sabotage of 80s smooth jazz, turns inside out on Vono’s charming interlude “Der Zauberer”, then finds its feet again via Reichmann’s ’78 composition »Wunderbar« taken from the Sky LP of the same name. This frazzled fusion of cosmic country and Asiatic melody shares a widescreen worldview with Deux Baleines Blanches’ »Draht 9«, on which post punk electronics and chiming guitars combine with bittersweet beauty. The time-travelling Rolf Trostel takes us to the midpoint with pulsating chords which predate Basic Channel by a decade, while Phantom Band’s »Dream Machine« stitches together two decades of the psychedelic continuum in a riot of tumbling toms, panning sequences and brain melting waveforms. »Glucose« sees Moebius & Beerbohm unleash their strange music at a delinquent tempo, before Jimmy, Jenny + Jonny offer a second subversion of smooth jazz with their skronking Mediterranean fantasy »Salome«. Thomas Dinger’s frosty music box romance »Alleewalzer« and The Wirtschaftswunder’s stomping ska-like »Television« follow in quick succession, leading us into Cluster’s narcotic fairground »Oh Odessa«, a queasy assemblage of detuned FM bells and percussive piston bursts. From there, the dubbed out post punk of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, experimental dance of Notorische Reflexe and unhinged disco of Günter Schickert capture different ends of the alternative dance floor, before the pastoral outsider pop of Lapre’s »Septer« signs off in a swell of yearning melody.

[engl] The compilation to 20 years of Tapete Records

[engl] Wreckless Eric needs little introduction – he wrote and recorded the classic Whole Wide World and had a hit with it back in 1977. Since then it's been a hit for countless other artists including The Monkees, Cage The Elephant and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Eric's version featured in the 2022 Expedia / Superbowl / Ewan MacGregor travel ad, and the Cage The Elephant version is the new theme tune for the podcast Smartless. He went on to release twenty something albums in forty something years under various names. This new album, Leisureland, marks a return to his more ramshackle world of recording – guitars and temperamentally unpredictable analogue keyboards, beat-boxes and loops in conjunction with a real drummer, Sam Shepherd, who he met in a local coffee shop in Catskill, New York. He was delighted to find that Sam lived around the corner and could easily drop by to put drums on newly recorded tracks. The recording methodology may have been Contemporary American but the subject matter is almost entirely British. It also contains more instrumentals than any of his previous albums.

[engl] Aus dem Schoße „des größten Wallfahrtsortes Deutschlands“ kommen Zymt. Die Pampaboys vom Kamener Kreuz. Das Kleeblatt versprach Ihnen Glück. Gottlieb Wendehals und auch Reinhard Mey besangen diesen geschichtsträchtigen Ort. Neben dem Verkehrsfunk wären hier mit die musikalischen Wurzeln auch schon erklärt. Wer hält schon die Versprechen von einst. Mit „Das Privileg der Misanthropie“ kommt die erste Veröffentlichung auf Langspielplatte. Kein Demo, keine Proberaum-Aufnahme. Direkt aus dem Speckgürtel mit 13 Liedchen in haargenau 1137 Sekunden auf zwei Seiten des momentan wohl teuersten Rohstoffes dieses zum Tode verurteilten Schrottplaneten. Der Fiat Punk bringt dir frischen Wein in alten Schläuchen. AZ oder Rock-Olymp, Zymt fürchten weder Teufel, noch den Fernsehgarten. Gonzo-Zeit! Zymt – ohne Milchreis, aber trotzdem zuckersüß. Mit Wermutstropfen - sonst musst du dich übergeben. Wie wir alle wissen, ist der bescheuerte Bandname wurscht, wenn die darübergestreute Musik stimmt und man das Zeug mit zugehaltener Nase irgendwie in den Wanst bekommt. Und da sind wir beim fehlenden und gegen schöneren Buchstaben getauschten I in Zymt! Denn die ganze Chose trieft vor I-Reminiszenzen á la Ixi, Ideal und Iggy Pop. Okay, Iron Maiden sind definitiv nicht dabei. Dafür noch ein paar Bands ohne I am Anfang: The Hives, DEVO, Nichts. Eine Musikgruppe wie ein Autounfall auf der B1 – berechenbar, aber zermürbend nervig. Frühe Ärzte, späte Roy Black. Zymt sind mindestens ähnlich gaga.wie eine Auffahrangelegenheit: musikalisch und textlich. Es gibt diese knutschfleckige, orgeluntersetzte und hitorientierte NDW-Seite der Band und neben Ixi höre ich da am ehesten die wesentlich dreckigeren Ideal („Blaue Augen“) heraus. Aber es gibt auch die dadaistische Punkseite. So heißt es im Song „Mallorca ohne Andi“: „Ganz Arenal wimmert und flennt: Ein Sommer ohne Pipi und Kaka auf Zement.“ Dieser Sound der nur leicht angezerrten Halbakkustikgitarre ist so unfassbar typisch, die Riffs mega geil gegenläufig. Chaotisch und elegant, hymnisch und wild mit dem Drumset einer angetrunkenen Militärparade. Mit einem fetten I als Reminiszenz und auch ohne Milchreis höchst bekömmlich! Bei Zymt singt jedenfalls keine Ixi, Nikki oder Annette Humpe, sondern Maz, ein gereifter Stubentiger mit expliziter Krawall-Vergangenheit, der schon „Mann kackt sich in die Hose“ Seele und Stimme verlieh und sich hier an 13 Stimmfarben in 13 Songs übt. An allem anderen was man sonst so mit Hand Fuß Mund spielen kann: Achim Schlaffke, Chris, Jonas Francis Karate und Rakete, bekannt aus Gruppen wie „Napoleon Dynamite“, „Abriss“, „Willy Fog“, „142“, „Sidetracked“ und zig anderen relevanten Ruhrpott-Bands mit Uhr am Gelenk der letzten 15 Jahre. Grüß dich, Hannes. „Das Privileg der Misanthropie“ erscheint in Kooperation zwischen My Ruin und Spastic Fantastic Records