Stage 03, Southern Germany

The third stage of my trip brings me north of Austria to southern Germany, first of 3 stages pipelined for europe's biggest country. For now we be looking at germany's wealthiest part, Mercedes and BMW ring a bell ? Together with that other well to do bastion, Switserland (stage 4) i note that all that comfyness doesnt do much for the music scene, it seems stuck in "Volksmusic" and consuption of large quantities of top class beer. Still, i managed to get some great music out of the regions. The first stop is Munich, one of the best places to live on this planet (ranked 7th). It's most famous musical prodigy managed to confuse the nazi's when in 1937, a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit through sexual and holistic balance, based on thirteenth-century poetry found in a manuscript dubbed the Codex latinus monacensis, was performed for the first time, Carl Orf's Camina Burana * . Some nazi's branded it degenerate , others applauded, in any case Orf got away with it, and remained a music teacher all his life, he died 1982.


Fast-forward to 2002, and a pair of classically trained drummers are making genre-defying tracks drawing from drum and bass, techno, jazz, and Latin alike.

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Fauna Flash - Fusion 94mb

The Munich-based duo of Christian Prommer and Roland Appel are representatives of an approach to electronic music that owes as much to jazz and dub as house and techno, and which draws equally from them all. Although this kind of cosmopolitan eclecticism may seem slightly out-of-date when compared against the current mainstream of electronic music, Fauna Flash are a living rebuttal to the notion that tasteful down- and mid-tempo music has to be dead-boring.

With their debut "Aquarius" they achieved and established a reputation as an essential part of the royal European drum & bass family during the last half of the 90s, the unlikely German kings of said genre! "Probably the best drum & bass album from Germany so far" opined Kruder & Dorfmeister and British NME (NewMusicalExress) rhapsodized "Fauna Flash have solved one of the great puzzles of the late 20th century:

On the follow-up of 2001, "Fusion", Prommer and Appel extended their musical focus on downtempo / dance soul in all its colors and variations. Through combining elements of house, dub, jazz, latin, brazil, hip-hop and soul, they created a new musical tight as tight can be unit, an identity stamped by urban club music.

The two Munich-based producers are busy as ever with a zillion remixes and side projects: in 2003 they released the highly-praised Voom:Voom, their project along with G-Stone Peter Kruder as well as Trüby Trio debut "Elevator Music" (see stage 2) Their remixes are pretty much sought after, demands en masse and both of them are kinky/dinky club filler DJs, regularly booked for the most notorious clubs around the world.



01 - Mother Nature (6:42) ( ft Sugar B )
02 - Percussion (6:27)
03 - Free (6:35) (ft Deidra Jones)
04 - Tel Aviv (5:36) ( ft Johannes Enders)
05 - Alone Again (6:08)
06 - Referee (6:35)
07 - Ten (6:06) (ft Deidra Jones)
08 - Morning (6:34)
09 - Sunday At The Getty (6:32)
10 - Question (5:36) ( ft Aphrodelics)

Fauna Flash @ Amazon

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FunkStorung - Disconnected* ( ^ 99mb)

South a Munich we find the provincial town of Rosenheim home to another duo, Funkstörung.Their diverse musical backgrounds (hip hop and Heavy Metal) notwithstanding, they initially produced straight minimalist techno After a problematic time with the label they signed to, they started Funkstörung. Some high profile remixes got them noticed and signed to the K7 label. After a remix album followed 'Disconnected", its marked by their imposing production style, where the very fabric of the digital space they work in is stretched, scratched into a brand of crunchy computer beats, scratchy glitch-hop, stressed sub-rhythms and sounds.

In the beginning of August 2006, a statement was published that the duo had officially broken up due to musical, personal and practical differences. Both Michael Fakesch and Christian de Luca will continue making music with their respective solo projects. ..Disconnected.



01 - Cement Shoes ( Ft - Enik 5:01)
02 - Dirt Empire ( Ft - Nils Petter Molvær 1:37)
03 - Chopping Heads (Ft - Tes 3:47)
04 - Habitual Citizens ( Ft - Mark Boombastic 0:53)
05 - Disconnected ( Ft - Enik 4:56)
06 - The Zoo (1:04
07 - Sleeping Beauty (Ft - Louise Rhodes 4:12)
08 - Like A Poet ( Ft - Enik 4:05)
09 - Play Pause (0:14)
10 - Fat Camp Feva ( Ft - Tes 4:18)
11 - Sleep Walking (1:00)
12 - Moon Addicted ( Ft - Enik 4:29)
13 - Mr. Important ( Ft - Rob Sonic 5:01)
14 - Captured In Tones (Ft - Sara Jay 5:39)

Funkstörung @ Home
Funkstörung @ Wiki

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Notwist - Shrink* ( ^ 98mb)

We stay south of Munich , the little town of Weilheim-(pop 34,000) boasts a very healthy music scene. Notwist, what's in a name, ( i added the 'twist to the cover because of its ambiguity), formed 1989 In 1990 they recorded their self-titled debut, 1992 Nook, which has an indie rock sound, while their 1995 album 12 contains their first flirtation with electronics. 1997 "Console" Martin Gretschmann joins the group which results in a shift towards jazz electro rock on Shrink (1998), with hindsight a crucial step. 2002 saw Neon Golden which finally put them on the map with emotional minimalist rock and soulful electronics. In 2005 they joined with Themselves as 13 & God to release the eponymous debutalbum.

Meanwhile they explored other avenues in Lali Puna and the Tied & Tickled Trio ( a trio ?-- they boast anywhere from six to 12 members depending on the day) , with which they rank in the world’s most celebrated jazz/electronc fusionists. Releasing 2 albums before the suberb live album Electric Avenue Tapes* (65mb), a bridge between 1950s' cool jazz and 1990s' post-rock. Followed by Observing Systems (03) and ARC('06)



01 - Day 7 (5:55)
02 - Chemicals (5:15)
03 - Another Planet (4:30)
04 - Moron (4:46)
05 - Electric Bear (4:28)
06 - No Encores (4:25)
07 - N.L. (5:36)
08 - Shrink (4:24)
09 - Your Signs (6:46)
10 - 0-4 (2:20)

Notwist @ Home
Nowist @ Wiki
Notwist @ Amazon

Tied & Tickled Tio @ Amazon

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Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Cicadae* ( ^99mb)

When the heart beats 300-times a minute, it is known in german as "Kammerflimmern", it's the main cause of sudden cardiac arrest-in case you wondered.
The Kammerflimmer Kollektief are from Karlsruhe and with Cicadae they added another gem to the contemporary electro-jazz crown.Cicadidae's ten tracks comprise most beautiful music, unique quality to the production, instrumentation, and arrangement of each tune . An exquisite, all too short reading of Annette Peacock's "Blood" is the album's highlight. Vibraphone and bass sketch the hymnal melody, joined by lush violin figures and soft digital crackle. It's exqusitely lovely. Having said that, there's little here that's not beautiful; there's much that's mysterious and opaque too, which gives the music its power, meditative music for a society gone mad. I can say first hand, there not to be missed live either.



01 - Neumond Inselhin (6:08)
02 - Sie Tranken Regen (0:51)
03 - Über Die Wasserscheide (4:31)
04 - Blood (1:20)
05 - ... Denn Nacht Ist Jetzt Schon Bald! (4:57)
06 - Sie Tranken Regen (Version) (5:12)
07 - Mantra (4:52)
08 - Eierdaunen (Gerupft) (6:22)
09 - Irgendwann: Frühling (6:51)
10 - There's A Weight On You, But You Can't Feel It (1:30)

Kammerflimmer Kollektief @ Home
Kammerflimmer Kollektief @ Amazon

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Bergheim 34 - It's Not For You, As It Is For Us* 98mb

Meanwhile, light years away from the former living room combo of Bergheimer Str. 34, Heidelberg, they have all moved to different cities, and rehearsing together has become a rare exception. Instead, Bergheim 34 have adopted a process of file sharing. Ideas are transmitted, passages added, sounds changed until a track evolves that is then circulated on each of the four hard disks. In the classic sense, the band has thus perhaps become an ingenuous fake but in the modern sense they could also be pioneers.
Unlike many of their German counterparts, who have opted for a more minimalistic glitch-tech approach, Bergheim 34, four individual artists apparently linked over peer-to-peer networks, has decided to channel its efforts toward sunny, danceable electronics. In addition, their Casio synths, electro beats and harmonizing vocals reek of ’80s nostalgia. Singer Anne Vortisch with her calm, ethereal voice brings together the funky beats, glitches, and spooky cinematic sound effects



01 - Baustelle (4:39)
02 - Random Access Memory (6:03)
03 - Us Key (4:25)
04 - Nasty Girl (5:10)
05 - Sucker Pt. 2 (4:05)
06 - System (3:53)
07 - Frogs On Grills (6:13)
08 - Rababa (6:01)
09 - Coding Stains (6:08)
10 - Sucker Pt. 1 (3:46)

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* All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !