SAMMLUNG-ELEKTRONISCHE KASSETTENMUSIK

Unadorned post-war apartment houses dominated the views of the city, which
strangely was experienced as "elegant" by the fl neurs on the K nigsallee. The
muted, bureaucratic cement slabs, the "art bunker" otherwise known as the
Kunsthalle, not far from the Ratinger Stra e with its punk history, and the brutally
futuristic elevated railway called "The Millipede" stood out in a powerful gray. This was D sseldorf in the early 1980s. Perhaps that is why the encounter with "Electronic Cassette Music" seems like a
glimpse into a mysterious parallel world. Indeed, everyone knew of each other, but
often only as a name. "Ettlinger, wasn't that the painter from Nuremberg'" Of
course, his delicately menacing nervousness attracted their attention, albeit
belatedly. Similar to Mentocome, whose subtle tram ride through acoustic urban
landscapes in Japan met with interested response. Kurzschluss was Catherine
Ledit's project. Where her threatening pads had an almost meditative character, Dirk
Gr tzmann's Le Petit Mort drew listeners into virtually occult scenarios, not so far
from the world of Current 93. Ledit and Gr tzmann later collaborated as the duo
Temps Perdu'. Trance, as propagated by Chris & Cosey, could have been the
inspiration behind the duo Wooden Barrows. Their carefully accentuated rhythmic
work looks into a future for which no words existed. Isolated searching found
expression in forms of deviant sexuality - a leitmotiv in those days. It's astonishing
how subtly many of the pieces exemplify this movement.