Reissue of this milestone in European post-punk history, originally released in 1980. Formed in Limburg in 1980, multinational band The Wirtschaftswunder consisted of Czech-born guitarist Tom Dokoupil, Canadian keyboardist Mark Pfurtscheller, German drummer Jürgen Beuth (Die Radierer) and Italian singer Angelo Galizia. The Wirtschaftswunder sounded and still sound like no other band: danceable yet disturbing pop that 40 years on is still modern.
"It was June 1980, a punk festival at an independent youth center, hidden away in a Munich backyard. Three days solid, nothing but hard-edged punk. Early on the Sunday afternoon, shortly after dumplings so to speak, a few characters in pale suits and hats appeared, looking like a cross between Madness and the East German politburo. Word got around that they came from out in the sticks, the countryside, and all they wanted to do was play. The Wirtschaftswunder had, in all seriousness, driven five hundred kilometers to Munich . . . Once there, they sliced their way through the audience with their sheer presence, exuding self-confidence that was neither innate nor divine, but the pay-off for a clear-cut concept . . . The Wirtschaftswunder were never interested in conventional concerts or specific sounds, they were constantly engaged with the presence of genuinely diverse characters. Take Angelo's confused aura of a gastarbeiter (migrant worker) -- which was absolutely authentic. He came from Sicily and somehow ended up in a metal goods factory in Limburg. When he sang: 'Ich bin ein Analphabet' ('I am analphabetic', I couldn't help hearing: 'I'm an alphabet'), he really meant it. There was somebody who struggled with this strange German techno world, who didn't know: 'what does it all mean?'. Tom arrived with his family from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Mark landed in the German provinces all the way from Toronto. Together, they were a fulcrum for the 'theatrical process' as Tom called it, their artistic principle released in performance: Thunderer whistles, salutes, axe battles, taking angle grinders to metal, generally unsettling people. Tom's brother, the 'new wild' painter Jiri Georg Dokoupil, came up with much of the conceptual ammunition. None of which was the slightest bit hackneyed ? indeed, nothing like this had ever been seen before in a musical context . . . The interplay of characters becomes transparently clear on the first LP (1981). Not least in terms of the production, which is brilliant in its simplicity. Tom had a small 4-track studio in a cellar, but he performed wonders with it! Absolute state of the art; without compare, unless you were happy with throwing yourself into the jaws of the record industry. And this is why The Wirtschaftswunder are such a fantastically important band..." --Jürgen Teipel
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