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Cassette
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TAL 037CS
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$15.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/23/2025
The Crippled Flower was a post-punk band from Düsseldorf -- and they arrived late. However, unlike many young, unsuspecting, hairsprayed hopefuls from that time, in 1985 they could sense that the end of their era was approaching. They knew too much to want to take the world by storm. They were four individualists searching their own way. Each of the band members only found their calling after the time that they had spent together -- but that's exactly what makes The Crippled Flower still seem really interesting today, this static energy that does not discharge, but is simply there. Searching dreamers should sound like that and that's what they were. Singer Phil Elston, for example, had brought his love of Kraftwerk from England to Düsseldorf. Even his bandmates found this strange, but they were also entangled in their own longings. Listening to the songs today, The Crippled Flower sound like they are hugely at the height of their game; think of Wire, Felt, Scritti Politti, or Minimal Compact. Often, it is only Phil Elston's Sprechgesang that confirms that this is really the same band. However, it was back in 1985 when, importantly, the catalyst that brought the musicians together -- the short-lived eclectic record store "Heartbeat" in Düsseldorf Bilk -- occurred. It was there where post-industrial and pop, melodic minimal music and sound attacks awaited those who wanted to discover music by artists and bands they did not yet know. Firstly, with a cassette just entitled The Crippled Flower, working from project-like studio recorded sketches. Four more tracks from the short-lived band appeared in 1986 on A Heartbeat Rendezvous. A demo tape submitted to Les Disques du Crépuscule, however, did not lead to a worldwide career and so, unfortunately, it was soon over. Only Phil Elston, who helped sabotage fox hunts in England and wrote these observant lyrics about environmental destruction and time travel, seems to have escaped the social-media world. Whether he found Kraftwerk-fulfilment in Düsseldorf or moved on disillusioned remains a mystery to us. And somehow this also fits in with that peculiar, special band." --Oliver Tepel, Köln 2025
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