Originally I wrote a long intro, trying to explain my thoughts on the more experimental side of music, but then I realized it made me sound like one of those critics, who start their reviews with „I don’t like this thing in general“ and then to nobody’s surprise write an extremely negative review about it.

But no, I’m actually quite drawn to strange and experimental music, although I also believe that „different“ doesn’t necessarily equals „good“.

However, I bought the following CDs fully expecting what they were going to be and as always when I buy something, I want to like it. Even if I’m about to sound pretty negative at times, be sure that I am happy to own the following CDs.

Now what CDs am I talking about? Among the huge pile of discs that I randomly bought in the last few weeks, these four stood out for being…odd.

Let’s start with MUSIK FÜRS WOHNZIMMER, released in 1998.And I even seem to remember it being discussed on Viva 2. The name (Translated: MUSIC FOR LIVING ROOMS) already gives a pretty tongue in cheek vibe. I wonder if some grandparents bought it, expecting some swinging Schlagertunes or such. If that happened, I hope none of them died from a heart attack. This compilation delivers some of the weirdest and experimental stuff that I have heard in a long time. The songs (well, „songs“) range from „pretty odd“ to „just ridiculous“. A simple guitar and organ instrumental like Contriva’s SMOKING feels almost out of place. Some tracks sound like evil children’s songs (TEUFEL by Quarks), we get some Low-Fi Drum & Bass (Joe Tabu’s AKTION KOPFSALAT), some tracks sound like Helge Schneider-esque „It’s funny because it’s not funny, in fact, it’s also quite awful, but that was the point“ Dadaism (Klaus Beyer’s KONZERT IM WOHNZIMMER) or even abstract audio plays and simple „What does this button do?“ sound experiments.

Interrupted is the whole thing by a series of skits that pretend to be a „What’s that noise?“ quiz for children, even though the noises turn out to be very gruesome and macabre. Admittedly I groaned a lot at first, because „Haha, we say it’s for kids but it’s not“ was even in 1998 a pretty old joke. But the skits won me over with their increasing absurdity.

There aren’t many artist on there that I actually know. Not sure how many of them are still making music (or „music“) or ever made music in the first place. If someone would tell me that this was some strange one-off project from an art-collective, I would believe it. Fuschimuschi is a band that I am actually familiar with. Adolf Noise is of course better known as DJ Koze. Gautsch released in the late 90s a quite fun, sample heavy Hip Hop album, but is way more successful in the House music scene as Malente. And Schlammpeitztiger is at least a band (or a person?) that I know by name.

I gotta be honest. This is not a CD that I will listen to a lot, but I like that I own it. It feels very „Art for art’s sake“ most of the time and is often a really test for my patience. But I actually know at least one person who will love it, while I will probably just drop two or three tracks from it once in a while on my radio show. But yeah, interesting stuff. Worth checking out at least once IMO.

Up next is FÜR JASMIN: DAS BLÜMCHEN REMIX ALBUM, released in 1996. In case you didn’t grow up in Germany during the 90s, let me provide some context. Blümchen was one of the best selling artists of that time. It was basically teen pop on speed. 150-170 bpm Happy Hardcore bangers with lyrics about love and dating and shit. It was dumb, it was cheesy and I love it! Now you might expect that the remix album is done in the same style, probably with Happy Hardcore and Eurodance artists of that time, but hell no! I guess its existence is a meta joke. Or maybe the failed try of getting some money from the too-cool-for-Blümchen young adult crowd?

The remixes here are also quite alternative and artsy, but not as cranked to 11 like on MUSIK FÜRS WOHNZIMMER. In fact, this is quite an easy thing to listen to, although not for everybody. There is often very little from the original songs left, which actually makes me worry that some artists just used whatever unreleased track they had laying around in their studio, maybe added a short vocal sample and then called it a day and cashed their cheque.

My favourites are the HERZ AN HERZ version from Die Schröders, which turns Blümchen’s first hit into something more Rammstein-esque. Also great is Tobitob’s BOOMERANG remix. The German rapper gives us a smooth downbeat remix. Andreas Dorau uses his DJ IT alias for a sound collage that could’ve worked on MUSIK FÜRS WOHNZIMMER. All in all I think the tracklist here is quite fun. We get breakbeats, alternative rock, even some House, whatever you want, just nothing normal.

I would love to single the track from Egoexpress out though. I have no idea what they were smoking. It sounds like they just played the original track and pushed random buttons, applying flangers, distortions, whatever filter and effect they could think of, without any rhyme and reasons. God knows what the fuck they were thinking. Was it maybe some kind of „Eh, that music sucks“ comment? Where they just lazy? I have no idea, but I laughed my ass off. Then I kept skipping it on further listens.

FÜR JASMIN is probably not for the average Blümchen fan. It’s for people who despise Blümchen’s ultra commercial bubble gum appeal. And it’s for Blümchen fans who grew up and widened their music taste. Damn, was this a future proof remix album? Where they Marty McFly-ing it? „You guys are not ready for it yet, but your kids are gonna love it“? Whatever it is, I enjoyed it quite a lot although I admit that at times a certain spark was missing and in retrospect a lot of it sounds like Alternative Music 101. The kind of stuff that some random music critic, who is at least 15 years younger than you, will hype as the greatest shit ever, while you just sit there, shrug and mumble „Eh, heard that before.“ But yeah, still a good album.

And we stay in the realm of „Alternative remixes of German artists“, although Tocotronic are a bit classier than Blümchen. Although not as much fun, if you ask me. KOOK VARIATIONEN, released in 2000, is an accompanying remix album to their 1999 album K.O.O.K. Not sure why the „real“ album is spelled K.O.O.K. and the remix one KOOK, but whatever. Even though their name implies something more experimental and electronic, Tocotronic are more of an Indie Rock band, who made really boring songs with groanworthy lyrics that are just two steps away from „I am 14 and this is deep“.

Sorry. I know they are quite popular, but like most of the Hamburger Schule, they felt to me like a sitcom parody of a band that some self proclaimed intellectual art students would either form or listen to. In all fairness, I kinda like their songs SIE WOLLEN UNS ERZÄHLEN und LET THERE BE ROCK, so are we cool? No hard feelings? The second one was even from K.O.O.K. and gets the remix treatment here.

KOOK VARIATIONEN is definitely the most fun and accessible of this pile. Apart from one track, the Misery Mix of MISFORTUNE MUST BE FOUGHT BACK, there are no strange noise experiments on it. That one is really just a random 3 ½ minutes long noise though. The others are quite good though. Some are more Trip Hoppy, one (The KO Kompakt mix of JACKPOT) is a House banger, DJ DSL’s version of LET THERE BE ROCK takes a few really fun left turns. Others, like the Fischmob/Erobique Remix of JACKPOT crank up the guitars, while Dakar & Grinser turn LET THERE BE ROCK into a Synthpop track and provide the lyrics themself. So it’s more a cover than a remix.

The best and best known track on here is the Console (aka The Notwist’s Martin Gretschmann) Remix of FREIBURG, which got quite the airplay, even on more mainstream oriented music video channels, thanks to its fun cutout animation superhero video. Oddly enough, FREIBURG is not from K.O.O.K., but we not just get the Console version, but also one from Miss Kittin & The Hacker. Also more of a cover, thanks to Miss Kittin behind the mic. The biggest surprise was maybe the Abraxas remix of LET THERE BE ROCK. But only because I remember Abraxas from the 90s Happy Hardcore/Gabber days. Together with Flamman he turned Technohead’s I WANNA BE A HIPPY into a huge hit all over Europe. Here he gives the Tocotronic song a more Industrial feel.

I already spoiled that KOOK VARIATIONEN is the most accessible one IMO. The remixes have all the creativity that you want from such an album, but (almost) none of the headaches. I can see myself listening to it quite often. At least more than the previous two.

The maybe best known and definitely most interesting of the bunch however is TRANSMUTATION (MUTATIS MUTANDIS) by Praxis, released in 1992. Praxis consist of guitarist Buckethead, drummer Brian Mantia and bassist Bill Laswell, plus a bunch of guest musicians. On this particular album, the one and only Bootsy Collins is heavily featured. And Africa Baby Bam from Jungle Brothers is scratching under a different alias.

I doubt that I would have appreciated it when it came out. Back then I was way more into Techno and Eurodance. Although I admittedly started to get drawn towards weirder, more uncommercial music at that time. Still, I most likely would’ve ignored TRANSMUTATION (etc). However, the first time that I heard of it, was in the ancient year of 2022, when my favourite movie critic and generally cool guy Outlaw Vern was mentioning it in a retrospective of the summer of 1992. Thanks again, man!

The most interesting aspect of this album is for me, how much it sounds like a random jam session, but one with a clear vision. They knew what TRANSMUTATION was supposed to sound like, yet the music keeps zig zagging all over the place. It’s funky, it’s hard rocking, it’s instrumental Hip Hop, it’s Jazz, it’s psychedelic, it’s…something. Melodic structures are often hard to find. A mix of shredding electric guitars and funky wah wahs can suddenly turn into a long organ solo. Apparently one track is a mix of an old anime theme and a piece of score from a GODZILLA movie. There are samples, there are sound effects, it’s a huge hodgepodge of whatever the folks in the studio could come up with!

And yet, it sounds great!

Experimental music can sound really masturbatory at times, but I can’t imagine the artist patting themself on the back for being as weird and uncommercial as possible. It has this „We just do our thing“ vibe. Maybe they were even trying to make something more normal and then had better ideas. It’s artsy, but it’s fun! You can play it when you take the cute but pretentious art student to your place, but also drop at least a few tracks on it at your next party with friends, depending on their music taste.

I’m far from living healthy, but I’m not into drugs. Not even alcohol or weed. But if I would be, this is absolutely a CD that I would listen to while tripping. Although TRANSMUTATION didn’t seem to set the world on fire, it appears quite influential. It feels like traces of it can be found in later released works of artists like DJ Shadow, Coldcut, basically a whole bunch of Ninja Tunes or Skint artists. And yet, after 33 years, TRANSMUTATION still sounds unique.

So there you have it. Four random, unrelated 2nd hand buys, that are all too un-mainstream for the Top 40 radios. If I would rank them, I would give the #1 Spot to Praxis, simply for being unique, yet fun.

The 2nd place would go to KOOK VARIATIONEN, the one of the pile that isn’t a creative masterpiece, but has the most consistent quality.

#3 goes to FÜR JASMIN. It would probably share the #2 spot with KOOK VARIATIONEN, if more remixes would actually sound like that and not just like some random B-sides from the respective artists, that were thrown onto the compilation in the hopes of fooling everybody. (Disclaimer: Not saying that this is what happened.)

And of course MUSIK FÜRS WOHNZIMMER ends up in the 4th place, because of its at times frustrating artsisness, that makes it difficult to listen to.

Have a great day!

PF