“For the first time since it was recorded in East Berlin over 30 years ago the music of Martin Zeichnete can finally be heard. A disciple of the Kosmische Muzik of the likes of Kraftwerk, Can and Neu! he heard drifting across the Wall from the West, Martin’s idea of using the motorik, hypnotic beat of krautrock in the training of athletes was taken and exploited by the DDR’s state run Olympic Committee. Unable to obtain a licence to play his own music Martin embarked on what he called a decade long ‘invisible career’ with East Germany’s athletic elite his only audience. Mixing electronics with live instruments Martin produced an incredible range of work including music for warmups, running, ‘ambient’ music to be played in gyms and pieces for artistic gymnastics. The committee called this program State Plan 14.84L, Martin and his fellow musicians called it ‘Projekt Kosmischer Läufer’ (Cosmic Runner). Beginning with Volume 1, a program for a 5 kilometre run, Unknown Capability Recordings will bring Martin Zeichnete’s vision to the world at last.” Source: http://www.kosmischerlaufer.com/ Most tracks are cosmic, some have Motorik, e.g. this one.
LINDA PERHACS “Parallelograms – High Quality Sleeve – Large Sized Poster & Insert – 600 Copies Limited Edition” ****1/4
lp – 2003 – Merry-Go-Round MGR / Beatball (BMRL-2001)
LINDA PERHACS “Parallelograms” ****1/4
cd – 2003 – The Wild Places / Ace of Discs (WILD-005-RE) – 60’18”
Sweet, naively introverted and sometimes eerie – and always on the right side of twee. Very lovely and delightful, but not always as unique as some hypers would have you believe either. Linda reminds less of Vashti than of Joni and of Jacqui, sometimes even of Judy and Joan and Sandy and Carole and Karen. And Hope. Fans of “Willow song” on the soundtrack of “The Wicker Man” (cf. U0226) and of acts such as Mellow Candle, Tudor Lodge or even the Carpenters will like this too, while I’m even tempted to draw a parallel with Fred Neil, though not in sound. But a sweet, contemplative, Californialbion Joni trying to please Burt Bacharach comes closest, I guess. (Incidentally: ms Perhacs used to live in Topanga Canyon and in the Pacific Northwest of the USA – that whole ‘Hawaiian maiden’ story is untrue.) The cd adds five bonus tracks to the 1970 lp, the Korean lp reissue only two of them. The cd-only tracks (viz. a longer version of “Hey, who really cares” with added intro, a demo of “If you were my man”, a demo of “Chimacum rain” with extra sounds and a spoken note to her producer Leonard Rosenman) are worthwhile, but not crucial, so if you’d rather go for that poster… Note too that there’s been an earlier reissue on Ace of Discs which was mastered from a mint vinyl copy of the original lp but with a sound that wasn’t as close to the sound of the quarter track reel to reel tapes that have been used this time around, as the original lp had apparently been poorly mastered. And do note, as well, that this the WP brings together *everything* which ms. Perhacs has ever recorded. [Bunyan, Mitchell, McShee, Collins, Baez, Denny, King, Carpenter, Sandoval.]
