Psych.KG

Arme Nüss Volume 1
Bladder Flask / Kommissar Hjuler
Psych.KG 477. LP

Arme Nüss Volume 2
Bladder Flask & Broken Penis Orchestra / Kommissar Hjuler & Family Fodder
Psych.KG 485. LP

Arme Dornröschen
Bladder Flask & Broken Penis Orchestra / Wolfgang Kindermann & Magda Starwarska-Beaven, Dino Felipe & Kommissar Hjuler und Frau.
Psych.KG 483. LP


Three LP’s of mind boggling Fluxus, Dada, Improv, Sound Art and cut up queasy lunacy as culled from anywhere between the early 80’s and the present day has just landed and its like nothing else matters anymore. Put down your puny instruments of normality and breath in the frenzied fungal spores of Bladder Flask of Family Fodder of Kommissar Hjuler, of Broken Penis Orchestra of Wolfgang Kindermann & Magda Starwarska-Beaven where one speaks in German while the other translates into English to a soundtrack of found sounds recorded from a busy street window.

This gets complicated but bear with me: ‘Arme Nüss Volume 1’ is Bladder Flask’s ‘The Groping Fingers Of This Vulgar Intruder Have Strummed The Toppling Byzantine Organ Of His Mind’ which was a track that never made it as a United Dairies release [long story]. On ‘Arme Nüss Volume 2’ you have a reworking of ‘The Groping Fingers Of This Vulgar Intruder Have Strummed The Toppling Byzantine Organ Of His Mind’ by Broken Penis Orchestra and on ‘Arme Dornröschen’ a Broken Penis Orchestra reworking of Bladder Flask's ‘One Day I Was So Sad That The Corners Of My Mouth Met & Everybody Thought I Was Whistling’ [originally issued as an LP by Orgel Fesper Music in 1981]. Got that? I think I have. Just. My mind is fried after all this. You try descending into this world and leaving it with your senses intact.

What works for me is the coupling of Dada-esque Bladder Flask cut ups with the Fluxus improv of Kommissar Hjuler. The Kommissar has been off my radar for a while but appears to have spent the intervening years releasing material at a rate that makes Merzbow look a slouch. Hjuler, whether solo or mit frau are artists, multi-media artist and by that I don’t mean they use crayons and watercolours on the same bit of paper. Performance artists, sculptors, makers of anti-turntables, improvisers, provocateurs. Just look at those covers, looks like Hjluer’s work, Lego people watching a Kiss cassette concert, dismembered Barbie dolls [Arme Dornröschen translates as ‘poor sleeping beauty] covered in melted candle wax, Arme Nüss [poor nut] and cashew nuts strewn among the Barbie limbs. I once saw Hjuler und Frau play Colour Out of Space with a performance that made  most of everything else that weekend seem like stale ready salted crisps in comparison.
 
This is the world of German label Psych.KG where Fluxus meets Dada meets Anti-Art on a Hans Belmer landscape shaped from bits of twig and frayed bits of string. Take the coughing fits of ‘Groping Fingers …’ here we have the mysterious sound of out of tune pianos, French dialogue and from Broken Penis Orchestra the introduction of American spoken word samples and with it an intensifying of the general weirdness that the work generates. Listening back to back to the original for comparison what we now have is a far heavier, much weirder drug trip, an old zinc top Parisian bar where the punters are stoned and slumped, where the gaslights emit ether fumes and the accordion wheezes a sad lament, an unsettling atmosphere cut and edited to achieve remarkable levels of unease. Out of tune pianos are a common theme here appearing as they do on ‘One Day I Was So Sad …’ along with snatches of dialogue, fierce kazoos, clackety-clack machines, parping trombones, spooling tapes and uncontrollable bagpipes.

On side two of ‘Arme Nüss Volume 1’ Kommissar Hjluer thrashes around on a forest floor while trying to cut his binds with a junior hacksaw, reducing himself to sobbing piteous tears as he does so. On ‘Das Streben Nach Aberkennung’ it sounds like he’s taking his kitchen out using a lump hammer. Rhythmically. ‘Blue Orchid’ is a White Stripes cover banged out on an upright piano with two voices one of which is a deranged Pee Wee Herman the other being an officious German. All recorded to condenser mic. ‘Jazz Stuck’ is improv of the rawest kind, piano and sax with cut edits of the same put to tape and squelched to death. When collaborating with 70’s freaks Family Fodder we get six tracks of piano tinkling while someone chops up wood, pipes are clanged down deep mines, theres female French spoken word to the accompaniment of electronics, traditional French folk tunes squeezed out of accordions and on ‘The Kommissar Will see You Now’ a track that has an almost Residents feel.

Unfamiliar to me are Wolfgang Kindermann & Magda Starwarska-Beaven. Starwarska-Beaven describes herself as a ‘multi-disciplinary artist’ who works mainly in sound. Wolfgang Kindermann is an Austrian poet. ‘Who/Wer’ is the audio taken from an installations of Starwarska-Beaven in which she translates the text read by Kindermann to the sound of passing cars and general street noise and on ‘Daswessender’ manipulates vocals to the sound of angry machines.

Now for the bad news. All these highly desirous LP’s are pressed in small numbers. If I’ve got this right there’s only 48 of each with the 48th copy made in to an unplayable art edition. No downloads of course. What were you even thinking. There are copies available but be prepared to dig deep. 

News reaches these ears that Steve Stapleton is reworking Bladder Flask material as I type. This could complicate that second paragraph even further.

 
 
All three releases available here.



Psych.KG