From the city that gave us the Beatles, Hamburg, came Abwärts in about 1980. Their greatest contribution to pop music was that they provided a couple of members of Einsturzende Neubauten.
Abwärts themselves were a standard German Post-Punk band who sang in that slightly annoying German raspy timbre that was well suited for barking orders, but not for singing pop, or Punk; rather grates on the ears.
Nonetheless, cheese grater voices aside, the music is reasonably inventive and reminds one of Wire, with bits of Pink Flag and the more punky parts of "Chairs Missing".
I've added single "Computerstaat" to the end of the vinyl rip by the way.
Ps..a small largely irrelevant item of interest is,I remember that photo that they nicked for the cover. There was also a small child falling with the girl.I'm pleased to say the child survived the fall by, unfortunately, landing on the young lady featured here, who alas died!
Tracklist:
Amok
Maschinenland 2:57
Karo 1/4 08/15 Hoch 2 0:34
Monday On My Mind 2:38
Shanghai Stinker 2:45
Bel Ami 2:01
Verzählt 2:58
Softly Softly 1:58
Koma
Unfall 4:00
Mehr 4:27
Türkenblues 3:52
Neon Kind 3:20
Ich Bin Stumm 2:16
Japan - Live 3:52
Computerstaat 3:11
8 comments:
Would you believe they actually had a kind of an underground dance hit? Back in 1981 in clubs in Rotterdam people were dancing to that Japan song.... I saw them live, twice, both times together with Einsturzende Neubauten, great performances, loads of energy....
many thanks, this is one of my hundred top ten albums . absolutely totally wonderful
please share the other one too. containing The west is Lonely, and A word for Sunday.
also, If you have, Geräusche für die 80er
Wow Greetings Richard
"The west is lonely" coming up next, now you've requested it.
henk....the things people used to dance to in the early eighties at the alternative disco would live the modern youth static. "I can't dance to that" they'd say.But then again put a disco beat behind anything and they would dance to it without realising. Its a kind of mass hysteria.
Well... here's the funny thing.... For the last few years I've been doing dj sets when I'm in Holland. I play mainly Indonesian traditional music like jaipong, pergosi odong odong etc. and at first people are a bit bewildered but up till now in the end the whole place is dancing like crazy... I mix it with a lot of post-punk and last year it was amazing, a whole place, mostly youngsters dancing to Metabolist' King Quack, dancing to Blurt's Dyslexia, it's all a matter of getting them to "that point" which, in Holland, I find quiet easy to do, here in Indonesia though... I've given up the whole dj thing, here they really only want to hear what's in their Iphone's playlist, Justin Bieber, that sort of crap....
I remember once, I was playing in a club here, in come a whole bunch of American 20 somethings, all girls... "we want hip hop!!!" Oh yeah sure, I've got hip hop so I started playing all the good stuff, Brand Nubian, what ever, they came complaining, "we want hip hop!!!", yeah well what do you think I'm playing??? "NO!!! We want Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears!!!" Told them to go downtown to the Mickey Mouse Club, fuck-outta-here.... I later heard they were all members of a group of evangelists from Miami... That same night a tall Chinese lady came and said I was playing too much "nigger shit"....
Man....
Not only that, a lot of folks have a tendency to come hang over your equipment, totally drunk, spilling their beer asking for Bob Marley for the 50th time that night ( I kid you not).....
Sigh.....
thanks! Wonderful LP!!!! LOve you...
"From the city that gave us the Beatles, Hamburg, ..." - nice one, really
This is wonderful. Even tho I consider "Der Westen ist..." their best. Listening to it as I writing this comment. Nice if not essential piece of Deutsche Neue Welle.
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