Feb 12, 2006

The world's first and only messenger of exploding lungs



Nothing impresses me more than a man with an-- hold on, it's too cheap a shot. I'm going to start this post again.

Ahem.

Felix Kubin doesn't just play an organ, he is also listed as a Moog user on Wikipedia. I'd never set ears on him before, but I heard a record being spun at Sometimes Records' Volume night on Thursday and nearly spilt my drink in dribbling glee. Excited about a man with an organ. There you go, bringing the tone down again.

When Kubin was one hemisphere of German group Klangkrieg, he started his own label Gagarin Records to release what he called psycho sci-fi pop. It all seems quite DIY, and in that sense he seems to be a soul brother to Bill Drummond. In 1992, he created a pretend political party called KED or Kommunistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands if you're being formal. He then released a couple of singles as Liedertafel Margot Honecker to promote the party's policies. When the media attention became too much, LMH split. At the risk of typing too many triple-initials in one paragraph, I am bound to point out he would make the KLF proud.

He seems inspired by pop sensibilities but doesn't stick to one media, experimenting with animation films and radio broadcasting. He brings a sideways approach to electronica and acoustic music, for example, he describes his radio piece Nachtspeicher (Night Storage) as "club noise, field recordings, whispering silence, encounters with strange people and drunken angels." Beautiful!

His website calls him a "messenger of exploding lungs" and indeed if you Google that phrase, he does seem to be the only messenger of exploding lungs out there. In the same way that if you Google "trouser therapist", you get this blog. It's comforting to remember we each have something unique going on.

Feast your ears, your eyes and any other part of your body, let's say elbows, on these excerpts of a live performance by Felix Kubin. And expect to hear him in a Fat Roland set near you.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

This is the Polyphonic Spree game, with beautiful music, that I was talking about.

http://hollywoodrecords.go.com/polyphonicspree/questfortherest/

And this is Liz's blog, where I found it.

http://reachoutandtouchthescreen.blogspot.com/

If I was less lazy I would remember how to put hte links in the text. But I can't be arsed. Sorry...

Fat Roland said...

Danka for the links. Me like the Polyphonic Spree and I even think Liz made some valid comments about how we do things in Sanctus services. although she does seem to assume S1 only consists of the Sunday services and not the other 90% like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 2nds, II, etc etc.