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Review on The Tetchy Teenage Tapes ...
By The Wire
Its a rainy Sunday afternoon in 1981, the days when Synthesizers had no presets requiring the biro scribbled notation of knob positions and patching, preferably on graph paper torn from the back of your maths schoolbook for added 'scientific' authenticity. Detentions for defacing school property can be served in weeks to come. You are in your parents living room and abusing the hell out of your fathers home organ rhythm box and a Korg and Casio keyboard. You are Felix Kubin, you are heading for 13 years of age!!!
Whilst early 80's technologists in the UK like Cabaret Voltaire & Throbbing Gristle ploughed an unashamedly aggressive and miserablist furrow, in Germany they had probably already had enough years of taking technology seriously with Tangerine Dream, Cluster etc... so their new wave was surfed by the likes of Der Plan, Die Todliche Doris, Pyrolator etc people who took the surreal circus antics of The Residents and added a high energi punk-technik insistence all of there own. Its likely that in the UK the nearest you could get was The Normal, Fad Gadget or Silicon Teens which isn't the same thing . These were the sounds young Felix was captivated by and its something like this that he was trying to articulate right there in his parents living room. Kubin claims this to be 'idiot' music and not done to impress girls or peers, I'm not sure about the 'idiot' bit but its clear that this musics uninhibited tempo and switched on, 5 riffs at once, race to the finish line is something that occurs whilst hiding at home and trying to avoid the terrible hormone surges and angst that exposure to girls in their natural habitat might provoke at that age.
Who could fail to be impressed by the mostly unheard cassette rebellion of this slightly nerdy looking pre-teen, nicely dressed by his mum with not a safety pin in sight, the only difference between his and a 100 other synthetic pre-pubescent bedroom outbursts that must have been occurring right across Europe is two words 'mad' and 'genius' And now selections from this world renown deutche-deviant's adolescent home-tapings are finally surfacing with duties split between 2 labels, for the benefit of prospective purchasers there's about 6 tracks on the A-musik 12'' vinyl version that aren't on the SkiPP labels CD release and 5 tracks on CD but not on the Vinyl. This doesn't make either better than the other, on the contrary ITS ALL bonkers, its ALL GOOD!
Matt Wand for thewire.co.uk