Dunkelziffer (Can Related)

Dunkelziffer - Live - 1985 - G. & P. Essential Music

Damo Suzuki was the singer in the German avant-rock/progressive rock band Can between 1970 and 1973. Dunkelziffer have been described as a "German mystic group, playing percussive space reggae". This live album recorded at Maschinenhalle, Stollwerk, Cologne 28.12.1985, features Damo. Wikipedia states that "His freeform, often improvised lyrics, sung in no particular language gelled with Can's rolling, psychedelic sound". Nice description. This "Live" album is often very 80s sounding with some new wave elements. The album features long percussive jazz groove tracks, with some experimental/raw edges, very much in the style of Can. The music has not got the "urgency" of Can, or the "rolling, psychedelic sound", but it is still good music. Damo's distinctive vocals are a huge part of the music, and they continually hover across the top. Craig Johnson brilliantly described Damo's vocal style by saying "His sometimes serene, other times terrifying spontaneous vocal delivery and the drugged funk, space-age gothic repetition of the band (Can) carved a significant notch onto the draft of modern music". [from "Damo Suzuki : HollyAris : I Am Damo Suzuki".] © http://www.spikemagazine.com/0205damosuzuki.php If you are a Can fan or even a jazz fusion fan, you may like this album. If you are not familiar with Can, try and listen to at least one of the following albums, - "Tago Mago", "Ege Bamyasi", or "Monster Movie". "Live" was also released in 1997 on the Japanese Captain Trip label. The album has also been released as Dunkelziffer "Live" by the Damo Suzuki Band, and "Dunkelziffer Live im Stollwerk 1985". Try and hear the Damo Suzuki Band's "V.E.R.N.I.S.S.A.G.E.", and Dunkelziffer's "Songs For Everyone" albums, and search this blog for releases by the great Can keyboardist, and composer, Irmin Schmidt

TRACKS

1 Coffeehouse 11:20
2 After Saturday Night 5:52
3 The Messenger 6:40
4 Facing The Wind 13:01
5 Distant Drums 5:10
6 These Days 4:14
7 Up Date 5:54
8 Shamrock 4:11
9 You're My Melody 9:32

All songs composed by Dunkelziffer

MUSICIANS

Vocals - Damo Suzuki
Guitar - Dominik Von Senger
Bass - Rike Gratt
Keyboards - Matthias Keul
Drums - Stefan Krachten
Percussion - Olek Gelba , Reiner Linke



DAMO SUZUKI BIO

The longtime lead vocalist for Krautrock pioneers Can, Kenji "Damo" Suzuki was born in Japan on January 16, 1950. An expatriate street poet inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road, he spent the better part of the late 1960s wandering through Europe, and while busking outside a cafe in Munich in May of 1970 was discovered by Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit; asked to replace the group's former frontman Malcolm Mooney, Suzuki joined them onstage that very night, making his recorded debut later that same year on the LP Soundtracks. With Suzuki in the lineup, Can produced its most enduring and innovative work, including classic LPs like 1971's Tago Mago, 1972's Ege Bamayasi and 1973's Future Days; however, upon completing work on the latter, he left the band to become a Jehovah's Witness. Absent from music for a decade, in 1983 Suzuki began showing up unannounced to perform at shows by the band Dunkelziffer, eventually joining the group full-time and recording a pair of LPs; in 1986, he formed the Damo Suzuki Band with fellow Can alum Liebezeit on drums, Dominik von Senger on guitar, and Matthias Keul on keyboards. Four years later the group mutated to become Damo Suzuki and Friends, its loose-knit lineup playing in and around the Cologne area on a weekly basis; in 1998, he founded the Damo's Network label, issuing a series of live recordings including V.E.R.N.I.S.S.A.G.E., Seattle and the seven-CD box set P.R.O.M.I.S.E.. © Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

ABOUT DUNKELZIFFER [ Translated from German (Google translator) ]

In the former machine shop of the closed Stollwerk chocolate factory in southern part of Cologne was the beginning of the eighties, an independent, stand-alone music scene, groups such as Dunkelziffer emerged. The hall was the ideal venue for concerts with bands such as Down and Gang Of Four, and still is the location of regional worship events. In this environment took its beginning in 1980 the project unreported. The founding members of the band were Helmut Zerlett (keyboards), Josefa Martens (vocals), Stefan's canals (drums), Wolfgang Schubert (sax), Matthias Keul, (keyboards), and Reiner Linke and Olek Gelba (percussion).The idea of founding Dunkelziffer, had Helmut Stefan Reiner and in southern France.There should be a band in which there are no rigid structures, but can be any composer, and all equally able to contribute their creativity and spontaneity when the moment is there, where they have an idea.The model for Dunkelziffer was the group CAN, which could go without vorbreitete pieces on the stage and managed to entertain people with spontaneous Direktkompositionen too. Stylistically Dunkelziffer combined with African rhythms and reggae influences, who at that time just emerged Neue Deutsche Welle. This was especially true of the first published Maxi "In the style of the new age." The band played many concerts for several hours. Over time, new members were added, as for example) Rike Gratt (bassist), Dominik von Senger (guitars), Damo Suzuki (vocals), Coco (Singer) or Raji Susanne AtorFen (vocals. Almost all members of Dunkelziffer were also involved in other projects. Thus, for example, played Zerlett Helmut and Stefan canals also Dunkelziffer and later with trance groove. Raji Susanne AtorFen sang among others for A Streetcar Named Desire and lives in Cologne, Japanese Damo Suzuki of CAN did. With Damo Suzuki's help a live recording of Dunkelziffer in Japan was published. © http://www.musik-base.de/Bands/D/Dunkelziffer/