26.06.2006 Hotting it up: Join The Deutschland Hysteria By Getting Your Facts Right About Some Fresh German Kack +++ PK ARCHIVE DEC 05 |
      Al Browne Life is shit from the start when your parents decide to move from London to a small remote town in the middle of nowhere and it’s in fucking Germany. And then they send you to a German school although you don’t speak a word German. Welcome to the wonderful world of Alexander J. Brown who’s pulled through all that developing a great visual language which probably stems from watching The Office and living in border town Kleve which is basically ten minutes away from the best cofee shop in the world, Kronkels. His technique? He just makes artists drunk and then firmly places his camera right on their foreheads. It works every time. Don’t ask me how. Alex Laljak Talking about someone working undercover and not making a big meal of it, Alex Laljak is the man with a plan. He is one of the most easy-going people and great to work with as he draws from a wide background. Having travelled numerous continents and documenting all sorts of crazy places in ex Yugoslavia, his work is not only documentary but also very descriptive. And his artist portraits are spot on. www.soundoflj.com/ octex/images.html. Aggro Berlin Yo! Dawgggs! This is rrrrraw! A label from the Eastside that definitely ruffs it for being so bad. These evil knievels from the hood are gruesome, undeniably careless and painstakingly German while really doing a great job in uniting the moody Berlin attitude with the bad aftertaste of US hiphop. www.aggroberlin.de Brinkmann & Kopetzki Brinkmann & Kopetzki have been losing it since day one. Being an integral part of the Kassel Stammheim collective who got famous for their parties equipped with elevator psychologists, they found their purpose by making the most monged-out flyers ever created by man. Chilling at the country’s most dilapidated after-hours since day one, they found their personal fulfillment in drawing the tales of Hotze, an immensely popular imaginary party person roaming the realms of comedown country. They dedicate all their time drawing smashed people creating some really poignant sketches for Germany’s most serious free music publication Groove as well as Raveline magazine and working as cartoonists in the film industry which helped their reputation to become the Kings of Gurn. www.hotzesworld.de Dan Dinsing Having previously worked with German’s most down-to-earth electronic music publication, Raveline, Dan decided to call it a day because he wanted to have more time to make love to his girl friend so he is a full time painter now. Which is damn clever cos he has a lot more time to make love to his girlfriend. And play records. And skate. Not that he cares. He just doesn’t. He’s not even gutted about the fact he never got credits, money and chicks for being the mastermind that created Phil Fuldner’s biggest hits (anyone remember “Miami Pop”, pop-poppoppop). He’s one of these rare individuals who can even make a turd look unique because he is so creative. www.danieldinsing.de Daniela Knuth She’s one of those young photographers who just get on doing their stuff, doing it well. Daniela Knuth is shit hot. At the moment, she is working on a book about Street Art in Berlin, and with Ad Noiseam a label with which she collaborated for some 12" sleeves. Very cool stuff, fresh and young. www.adnoiseam.net Eva Grönbach This designer is making fashion that you can call original Berlin style because it’s simple and effective. By using the national colours of the German flag, black red and golden, and embracing nationalistically flavoured imagery like the Reichsadler logo and printing it on wife beater shirts, Eva Grönbach manages to create highly controversial fashion. At the same time, her clothes give the innocent and confused post post post war generation some sort of homely Heimatgefühl and national identity, something Germany still lacks of unless we talk about football and recycling which is probably the reason why the Grönbach stuff goes down extremely well. Not only with Nazis. www.evagronbach.com        Kasia Marszewska Kasia is one busy person oscillating between Berlin where she is exhibiting in the “Club der polnischen Versager (Polish Loser Club)” on a regular basis, her native Warsaw, Düsseldorf, and Braunschweig, where she curated and documented a Chicks On Speed exhibition—Munich’s loud and strange artist collective at its finest. After filming the burgeoning fashion and music scene in Poland, being really sussed out about what’s going on there, all sorts people tried to get her involved in some projects. As a result, the Elektropopklub in Bytom, sponsored by the Kunstverein Wolfsburg, was born, an art exhibition space disco in the middle of nowhere which attracted freaks from all over the world. www.elektropopklub.org. LFO Demon This guy has been active for a long time, promoting parties and putting out records on Raggacore. His last album, “Genocide Memoria” is one of the most underrated things coming out in the last years. It's a mix of downtempo D'n'B and Illbient, very influenced by Mick Harris of Scorn fame and Meat Beat Manifesto, and really tasty and relevant. Great guy, little recognition, sadly. www.lfodemon.com Markus Schultze Markus Schultze is a multitasking photographer, producer, DJ and label owner, making Cologne happy with his original take on all things crisp and freakyfunky. Being donned with a strange military fetish that no one can, quite frankly, put their fingers on, he is someone who has a really nice way of dealing with people, enabling him to move in and out of subcultures without leaving a trace. With his recent project, documenting the magic and social importance of after-hours, he is paying homage to one of the most integral parts of electronic music culture – the time when you and your mate are in a state. Munk Munk own this little lovely studio somewhere in Munich and just get on with putting out great stuff they made with people they like, people like Princess Superstar for example. Who calls her humphop tracks something like “Mein Schatzi”. Class. Their relaxed attitude of running their highly successful Gomma label is celebrated as the nu new all over the world. They made this record with Chloe from Paris everyone keeps on swooning about and it is really good, like really really. Apparently, since then nothing has happened – apart form that fashion shoot involving giant gang-banging sausages – but they are still living happily in their little studio. www.gomma.de Pfadfinderei This gang of graphic designers and video artists have, single-handedly, transformed Berlin’s clubs into a Mecca of form versus function. Their artwork is everywhere, and they shaped the look of influential imprints like Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control. They work for so many labels and do so many flyers for cool clubs you start to wonder if they’re human at all. It might well be they are some weirdo alien life form that tries to invade the white cube of design space. If so, they are good, damn good at copying our species pretending they’re just this relaxed crew of hip youngsters donned with band T-shirts and silly hairdos being so extra hip it hurts. At the first Berlin VJ convention the sun shone out of their arses, and continues to do so as time goes by. www.pfadfinderei.com Pisa73 Pisa73’s Street Art is all over Berlin, and this is one of the best guy for this in Berlin. Really cool sticker, stencil and print art somewhere between electronic music, fashion and hip-hop. You can see his stuff all over Berlin, but while he is one of the best, he doesn't get much press. www.pisa73.com     Rich.vom.Dorf Some people are a miracle. Jesus is one. Rich is another. He just fell from the heavens, right into a little village. It is said that he has manna and weed growing out of his pockets. No one really knows the details, but what we did find out about is that he is now in his umpteenth year of producing very nice unclassifiable electronic music, put out on net labels such Sweet Smelling Surfaces. With gigs all over the northeastern part of Germany – he is said to be one of the last inhabitants of this remote strip of godforsaken land – Rich is one up and coming villager. A truly dedicated noise restructurer. www.richvomdorf.com Transformer di Roboter Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse with all these poser punks walking about thinking Sid Vicious was a DJ, Transformer di Roboter excavate heavy metal. When they play old Metallica classics on their Ataris and support the thing graphically with bad pixilated graphics, you just cannot help but believe that they somehow got stuck in time because someone whacked them really hard when they were screeching for sweets in the supermarket twenty years ago. Which is were the serious hair style disorder stems from. No one loves mullets as much as they do, so here you go. Some cliché German bad taste thing. And they mean it. www.transformerdiroboter.com Von Spar The bad news: They are singing in German. The good thing: With buying their longplayer “Die uneingeschränkte Freiheit der privaten Initiative”, you can enjoy twenty years of German cultural heritage in 38 minutes. Produced by Chris & Carol von Rautenkranz aka Die Sterne, the sound is similar to the Goldene Zitronen stuff coming straight outta Hamburg which is reason enough to have a listen. Essential because of those twenty odd years of musical reference of German punk and wave reflected in the cheeky cover versions of Neue Deutsche Welle songs like “Schalt mich ein, schalt mich aus (Kleine Taschenlampe brennt)” and Fehlfarben's hymn “Ein Jahr (Es geht voran)” or cultural highlights such as Blumfeld’s “Ichmaschine”. Rockpunkpop that doesn’t sound like a cheap rip-off of the international post punk nu wave revival. www.vonspar.de Katrin Richter |
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