Two new cassettes in the tapetopia series:
Die Frechheit – Der Flieder brennt
‘The band Die Frechheit (lit. “the cheekiness”) went about from 1988 to 1990. It was the successor to two East Berlin bands: Kein Talent (“no talent”) and Keine Ahnung (“no idea”). In the GDR scene from the mid- to late-1980s, Die Frechheit took up a rare position: surrounded by greyscale post-punk and experimental sampler compositions, winsome guitar pop and angular hip-hop, the band chose to play psychedelic prog wave. Its music was marked by a love for breaks, tempo changes and an attention to detail. The songs of Die Frechheit are highly sensual if always teetering on the edge of catastrophe, in a field where darkness turns into gloom. Known as Handtasche (“handbag”), the singer Andrea was a unique specimen from the scene around bands such as Freygang, Die Firma or Ichfunktion. Her lyrics combined a punk-like anger with the disillusioned weltschmerz of a Paradise Lost generation which had become deaf to the GDR as a Promised Land. The late 1980s are regarded by some GDR chroniclers as an unconstrained bohemian utopia, which they were only to a limited extent. After her exit from Die Frechheit, Handtasche formed the two-woman band 3tot. Boriz put in a fleeting performance with the Wartburgs für Walter. And drummer Christoph Schneider switched first to Die Firma and then to Feeling B. He ended up where cheekiness would turn into perpetual provocation by any means available, namely in Rammstein…’
(from the liner notes by Henryk Gericke & Robert Mießner)