Cabeza de Vaca P001 – Dub techno and Tresor

Welcome back to the show which is available to stream at Scanner FM. Probably the four dub techno tracks building up to the Tresor part of the show don’t need too much introduction here, or if not, some previous posts might carry the information. As for Tresor, there is plenty to say, which is one of the reasons why we turn the spotlight on them this week.

Obviously the emphasis is split in two: half on the label and half on the club itself and by default its existence in the changing landscape of the German scene.

Regarding the label, I mention in the show that it is worth comparing numbers and names with Berghain and Ostgut Ton, perhaps a little scientifically, for what they reveal about the changes in the local scene.

The Tresor label opened its doors back in 1991 with the release of the first eponymous album by X101, the supergroup featuring Jeff Mills, Mad Mike Banks and Robert Hood, which set the scene for a run of Detroit-influenced albums and singles.

Looking at the various interviews and documentaries, the respect at the time between the club and the American producers was very mutual, but retrospectively it still feels something of a surprise to find such a foreign influence on the label despite the club harbouring many German residents. This was pre-internet days after all. Of the first 20 or so releases on the Tresor label, only the “Berlin 1992” compilation and releases by Ingator II, 3 Phase and 3MB (featuring both Moritz von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann) involve German artists, whereas the rest is from Detroit. By comparison, running through the first 20 releases on Ostgut Ton, which kicked off in 2005, and you find Englishman Luke Slater on a compilation, part Caribbean-Austrian Cassy mixing the first Panorama Bar mix and that’s about it. The rest is German. Perhaps the only point of this is to highlight the African American origins of techno, something that should never get watered down, but the open arms with which techno was received as a “world music” and importantly as a liberation music in Berlin at the time. The wall had just come down after all. Obviously, there were more important things to police than clubs and there was still enough cheap real estate to make things possible, something that is only now just changing.

“Everyone from Detroit, when you’d say Berlin, [they’d think] its Tresor, you know. I think they probably think that [Tresor founder] Dmitiri [Hegemann] owns Berlin.”

- Blake Baxter, 2000.

The first Ostgut Ton 12", released by Berghain residents Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock

It is also worth comparing Berghain and Tresor for the important role in which the physicality of the club plays on the music. For example, the epic “Fünf” (fifth i.e. fifth anniversary) box set from Ostgut Ton featured 24 exclusive tracks all of which in some way (some more than less) featured sounds sourced from the structure of the building itself. Nick Höeppner said this several years ago at Resident Advisor 

“[Emika] told me about her last visit to Berghain. It was a regular Sunday morning and she noticed how everything in the building was resonating and vibrating and swinging and humming–she realized that there were lot of sounds coming from the building itself. That led to the idea of doing field recordings within the building while it's not open to the public. She had access to everything, the cooling rooms, storage rooms, the PA rooms... Our in-house technicians helped her mic the lighting rigs, they recorded the strobelight flashing, the fridges humming... They recorded impulse responses in the space of Berghain and built a reverb plug-in from that. It took about two or three weeks, then she took home tons of rough field recordings and edited them down to a library which she organized into different groups: downstairs, cloakroom, toilets, water, glasses, swings... whatever she has recorded...”

Tresor has had the same relationship since its inception. Anyone who was ever at the original site in the basement of the old Wertheim department store will remember and be inspired by the darkness, the smell, the red lights and sweat dripping from the roof, the invisible DJ and shadowy dancers behind bars and the rusted safe deposit boxes. The label itself has turned the scenario into myth, even using the original shape of the old key to unlock it as the symbol of the club. Similarly, over the years, many artists have paid homage to the location in tracks invoking the space like Mike Huckaby’s “Tresor Track” (played on the show), The Advent's “The Vault” and more. The Wire magazine also published a feature article on the subject of architecture in particular relation to Tresor and other Berlin clubs several years ago (sorry, back issues in Australia and cannot check my facts or pin point the issue here).

The old Tresor was called a “Techno bunker” at times and carried a true punk aesthetic that is sometimes missing in today’s world of straight lines and hipster design. But sadly the original venue was to close down in 2005 due to gentrification of the Potsdamer Platz area, a problem that has received a lot of media attention  lately and even lead to the closure of the famous Tacheles squat earlier in September this year, while the Liebig 14 tenement block squat was forcibly shut down in February last year leading to some backlash. The relocation of Tresor also led to the effective cessation of the label for several years, particularly with regards to new music. It is ironic then that Jeff Mills quipped in one early documentary that Tresor was “One of the most consistent and steady labels in Europe”.

Between 2005 and 2007 as the club moved to a new location in a power plant (or Kraftwerk in German (sic)), a long series of perhaps overdue reissues kept the label afloat. It was the sudden emergence of several new 12”s by the likes of Vince Watson (who apparently expressed keen and direct interest in releasing on Tresor), several remixes of Juan Atkins' mythical Infiniti project and other 12”s by the like of former resident Pacou and Sleeparchive that re-launched the label.

There was more to it than that, however. Mike Huckaby mixed together a "20^th Anniversary Compilation" last year, featuring mostly old tracks, but also a new one by himself (featured on the show), amongst others. Hot on the heels of this came the release of the recent "SubBerlin" documentary (directed by Tilmann Künzel) which charted the first 20 years of the Tresor club and labels history, cementing the clubs phoenix-like rise from the ashes.

This is not of course the first official documentary of the club. This distinction goes to “Tresor Berlin: The Vault And The Electronic Frontier” directed by Mike Andrawis for which there is no apparent media available on-line. Spanish readers can find more information on the documentary by clicking here.

With regards to the gentrification of Berlin, it is probably a problem that Detroit might like to have. The decline and the problems of Detroit have been well documented in many places recently, including a film by Julien Temple (“Requiem for Detroit”) and also “Detropia”. Mr C may not come from Detroit, but his words perhaps stick with regards to the legacy of techno and what place it has in the social unrest:

 “”Music is only the weapon we fight them with.”

BBC Documentary: Requiem For Detroit from Logan Siegel on Vimeo.

The other issue facing Tresor and the other Berlin clubs is the pressure being put in place by GEMA (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights). GEMA is a powerful collections agency in Germany representing some 65,000 artists (probably not many of them techno producers). They have recently stated plans to change the fee system by which all live events are charged. Depending on whom you believe, the big clubs in Berlin like Tresor and Berghain could face extraordinary price increases after 1^st January 2013 with the possibility that many will have to shut down. This comes in the wake of the news that the company behind Sven Väth’s Cocoon Club in Frankfurt has gone into administration. The looming crisis provoked by GEMA has caused a great deal of political unrest in the upper levels of club management in Germany, leading to the formation of the Club Commission which represents clubs and some concert organisers who feel slighted that the GEMA, a non-governmental organisation, has unilaterally made plans for reforms without first consulting the different sectors of the entertainment industry. The Club Commission is currently organising demonstrations and awareness companions in order to broker some room for negotiation, claiming that the “Techno tourists” are an important source of revenue for the state. The irony is that, on one hand, it is the techno tourists and hipsters coming to Berlin that are partly driving the increases in property values and creating a cultural backlash, while on the other hand are cited as necessary for the sustainability of the scene.

The conflict is set to play out until the end of the year and probably beyond, but the force of GEMA is not to be taken lightly as they have already played a big role in forcing Youtube to take down copyrighted music videos in Germany  back in April this year.

Strangely, despite the demonstrations and the five minutes of silence at the decks by several clubs, so far there has been no noticeable protest song or solidarity release.

Finally, one last word. As Detroit disintegrates and Berlin grows, so too does its myth in print. Several recent books celebrate the scene and the lengthy and winding history of Berlin and German music.

Back in 2009, the Innervisions label published an English translation of Tobias Rapp’s “Lost and Sound: Berlin, Techno and the Easyjetset”, a pioneering account of how Berlin became the techno capital. More recently, Théo Lessour published his book “Berlin sampler: From Cabaret to Techno: 1904-2012, a century of Berlin music" which traces one hundred years of history of the capital’s music. Check out the official website  for some historical videos that highlight the key narrative points of the book.

Some more links of interest:

Official Tresor website


Tresor interview and history at Ibiza Voice

Other documentaries and archival footage on Youtube:

Tresor Club 1991 [German only]

Love Parade 1995 Berlin

Tresor new opening 2007 [German only]

Resident Advisor – Real Scenes [Berlin]

Support Scanner FM and the artists.

Mixology

Summer time doesn’t just mean beach, sun and sex or cricket, it also means it’s time to release a mix compilation. At least this year anyway, with what seems a significant collection of mixes hitting the shelves at the same time, many of them unusual entities in more than one way. The generally high quality of them is good news for a medium that has changed significantly over the years.

Where once they did seem like coveted sports trophies, as my friend Josh Meggitt once said. Podcasts have certainly undervalued their importance significantly, but Podcasts still often feel like friendly matches with no real significance, win lose or draw. Mix CDs still work well by playing off their association with established brands and the inherent prestige attached, such as Fabrics mix series in particular, but also other label or project-associated CDs such as the Berghain or Kompakt’s Immer collections. Selfishness is to be expected on such projects that aim to tell the story of a collective sound, refracted through the nimble of fingers of one DJ, but some DJs are also guilty of inverting the spectrum and overloading a mix with their own material and biasing the significance of their association, such as Lee Jones recent Watergate 07 mix.  The antithesis of this is the trend for artists to release all their own original material as a collection, like Shackleton or Ricardo Villalobos’s Fabric sets, which has also warped the interpretation of what a mix CD should be. But generally this type of release does not qualify for the same level of comparison or criticism as a standard mix since they can ultimately be judged as a distinct artistic statement. The mix CD is, afterall, the club scenes equivalent of a live album and generally always reduced back to the fundamental question of whether it synthesises the club experience in 75 minutes of music or not. There are of course plenty of exceptional exceptions to this rule, with mixes that straddle the home-listening versus club-synthesis divide to great effect. In this case, to return to the sporting analogy, there are plenty of tactics to be considered in the mix CD: promotion vs self-promotion, home vs club, allow a build-up or come straight out of the blocks?

Marcel Fengler - Berghain 05

Perhaps the most extraordinary of the recent mix CDs was Marcel Fegler’s Berghain 05 mix. Arguably the best of the collection so far, it contains one of the most authentic simulations of the club experience captured on a mix CD, with an extended run of pressure-cooker techno that that shows no gaps, no incongruities and that begs to be played out loud. Indeed, this may highlight one of the limitations of the Podcast format, for although it offers potentially more time than a standard CD, it is nonetheless generally limited to headphone listening from a PC or an iPod. Overcoming the CD’s physical and temporal limits is one of the artitistic challenges of the mix CD, like writing to the constraints of a sonnet format, who’s reward is easier liberation to the stereo, home, car as opposed to the computer. Ryan Keeling makes specific reference to this recalculation of time in regards to the Berghain residents and their normally extended DJ sets. But whereas Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock also had to overcome this obstacle in their mixes for the series, Fengler seems to succeed by roping in his influences and letting the tide turn to its own rhythm. Dettmann and Klock’s mixes are excellent, but at some point their eyes stray, sucking in all they see, and are almost “too clever”, while they also contend with having to cram in the “exclusive tracks” which of course add extra value for money (until the 12”s are eventually released). Fengler contends with these problems by keeping his eye on the ball and not being distracted by a picture larger than he can frame. Highlights are too numerous to name, but Marcel Fengler’s own “Sphinx” is superb as is the Regis’ remix of Tommy Four Seven’s “G”.

Of the exclusive tracks, “The Labyrinth” by Reagenz is patient and beguiling with its narrow, looping trajectory and yet its cavernous depths of dub.

Lawrence – Timeless.

Lawrence’s “Timeless” mix is also a wonderful set, but not woven together quite as well as Fengler’s Berghain 05. Perhaps its biggest let down is the failure to continue on, at least for a time, from where it starts off, in the melancholy, dreamy atmosphere’s of Lawrence’s own “Floating” (a beatless version of “Old Joy” from the “Sorry Sun” 12” on Smallville).

It seems that at least a small run of something more romantic and bathed in fire light would have served the mix well and is, after all, an important part of the deep house sound purveyed by Lawrence and the cluster of labels like Drum Poet, Smallville, Laid, Mild Pitch and more. As if to emphasise this need, the second half of the mix is relatively heavy for house and thus could have stood out even more if given a little more contrast in the opening segment. Indeed, it is the second half that works best mix wise, not least for its intensity, but for its selection. A few of the changes at the beginning show their edges while never being incongruous whereas the second half is all plain sailing. But to say there are two sides also suggests there is a middle or fulcrum point. In this case it is clearly the Morphosis track “Silent Screamer” as identified by Matt Unicomb.

Coming out of the more hesitant and softer opening, its lumbering and probing bass easily begins to dominate and lock down the trajectory, and it is from these roots that the second half begins its heavier descent. One additional point about Morphosis: the upcoming Conducted mix by Marcel Dettmann will also feature a Morphosis track at its centre, this time “Too Far” with vocals by Kae from the same “What have we learned” album on Delsin.

For some reason this track was regrettably  left off the vinyl version of the album, when it is perhaps the most important of the whole set. Not only does it give the album its name via the chorus, but the remaining words provide a political context for the album’s angry, but elegant, outpourings while the middle eastern scales also celebrate the Lebanese origins of Rabih Beaini, the man behind the project.

To finish with Lawrence, another curiosity of one of the closing tracks, Mike Dehnert’s “Beat matching” is its similarity to A.nov’s “Lunar Drive” on Force Tracks from way back in 2000, one of the early tracks to appear on Andrew Weatherall’s mix CD.

Dixon – Live At Robert Johnson Volume 8

Dixon had some interesting things to say  recently about record distribution and in particular mix CDs and where he in particular wanted to take things. As it turns out, this mix for the Live at Robert Johnson series is not only his last commercial mix, but the last mix of the series.

The set in the end is a strange one, miles away from his outstanding “Five Years of Innervisions” mix last year and more aligned with 2009’s “Temporary Secretary” mix. The first third is ambient and cinematic, the second third, mid tempo and suave while the final third works harder to romp it home, albeit with the more ethereal strain of house favoured by Dixon and the Innervisions crew. The ambition is almost its undoing and from this it is easy to understand why in the aforementioned interview Dixon said

“I am sick of two things. First, the [mix CD] format itself. When I felt I was getting warmed up working on [Live at the Robert Johnson], the mix CD was over. So, in the future, if I do do something, it will be longer than 75 minutes and with a constant flow…. In the future, I think I will do a mix that is available online but I want to do it with a new business model and this business model will include payment.”

It is easy to sympathise with him on the basis of this mix, which clearly has in mind a scope much greater than can fit in the confines of a CD, but in this sense Dixon is also at fault somewhat. He knows the limits and the rules: a sonnet has 14 lines and rhyming couplets, no more, no less. Do you need so long to set the scene, as in this disc? Is patience a virtue here or a restraint?

But what Dixon does achieve is to reconstruct a lengthy narrative from fragments of text. The spoken-word aspect of the vocal parts which adorn many of the tracks are cleverly arranged to give the sense of a story unfolding, a little preachy at times, like on Osunlade’s “Envision", at others searching and naked. The music accompanies the story remarkably well, staying lost and supportive in the back ground, and then rising from nowhere to carry the anonymous and changeling protagonist to a new chapter. In this sense, each new track feels like a spiritual transformation as it strikes the next chakra on its meditative path to enlightenment. But in the end, Nirvana never arrives. Dixon’s mix is probably just a bit too slow, too ambitious and even just a bit too camp at times.

Hatikvah’s track “Big mind” is the track that most embodies the album: spoken-word poetry, subdued beats and cinematic atmospheres.

Fourtet – Fabriclive 59

Reviews from this release have been mixed, meted with faint and/or indifferent praise at best. Clearly not a mix to capture the dancefloor experience, Kieran Hebden’s mix falls short by being almost nothing in particular at all. A quirky track selection and some nice hybrid sounds (like Youngstar’s blistering “Pulse X” or later on C++’s “Angie’s fucked”) to keep the undecided listening, are not enough. In the end it is a jaggered, splattered and rushed journey with little direction or sense. Tracks jump in and out and almost all are dominated by nervous rhythms or cut and paste vocals that jolt like an old bus on a gravel road when not given a rest. Trying to enter the music is thus an anxious experience. One other problem is the opposite of Lawrence, in that the centre point does not hold and seems more like a bad omen than a transgressive point. The first centre point is the crowd recording that plays for a full minute and a half at track 13. After this the mix seems to begin again until Burial’s “Street Halo” fades in.  I would love to this dropped in a good mix, but here it seems forced and jars with the two tracks on either side thus dividing the mix again. Too much in too little space of time and the best tracks are some of the older garage tracks.

True spirit

While Berghain continues to dominate the hearts and minds of the techno scene, it should not go unnoticed that the past 12 months has seen the quiet resurgence of Berlin’s original and other techno “brand”, Tresor. The mythical club and label founded in 1991 has come on relatively hard times since its forced relocation from its original Potsdamer Platz home in 2005. It’s not often these days that you hear people saying they have been to the club on a trip to Berlin, nor waxing on about the label’s music, whereas the opposite could be said about Berghain and Ostgut Ton. While the club is still constantly putting on good DJs, the label has been a different story, with very few new releases in the past years and only several runs of rereleases, albeit of important albums. However, all that has changed since summer 2010 with a run of releases from artists that uphold the traditions, yet also function outside of the labels normal aesthetic of hard, dark and banging techno.

Future Beat Alliance aka Matthew Puffett has been the most prolific of the new wave of Tresor artists, releasing no less than three 12”s in the last year. His latest single “Grey Summer” released in May, harks back to a traditional sound with brash high hats and naked synths. Similarly, his other singles also rely heavily on traditional Detroit stylings, but come with the addition of richer melodies, particularly on “Machines can help”, whereas “Mourning” is sharp and spiky, but without some of the crudeness of the older label releases.

Irish techno duo Psycatron have had a number of high profile singles over the years on the world’s best techno labels, so it was no surprise to see them turn up eventually on Tresor. Their big room single “People in Glass Houses” mixes slippery crescendos, elements of dub techno with some overt drum samples reminiscent of Len Faki’s hit “Rainbow Delta” for Ostgut Ton a few years ago. The momentum is urgent and restless, but with so much emphasis on melody and decoration over beat force, the outcome is a surprisingly light track without an overarching feel of machine heaviness.

Sleeparchive is perhaps the most surprising of the recent Tresor artists. While still obviously a techno artist, his bleepy, glitch sound perched somewhere between home ambience and the club, is perhaps the most estranged from Tresor’s traditional dark claustrophobia. However, his inclusion on the roster should be seen as a sign that the “new” Tresor might aim to bridge the divide between electronica and the club more readily than they have in the past.

Scottish techno veteran Vince Watson appearance on the label was a surprise to many  and apparently came about in response to Future Beat Alliances tracks. Watson is one of the best users of melodic lines in techno as showcased here on “Atom”, but another prime example is  “Ethereal” originally released on Delsin which was one of the highlights of 2008.  “Atom” feels like Tresor’s original electro sound polished to a high chromium sheen and which then captures and reflects the kaleidoscope of melodic colour. Watson has a new ep called “Illusion” on Tresor soon.

While there have been plenty of changes at Tresor, Vince Watson has also been on the move lately. Perhaps partly because of his Delsin connections, the Scotsman has now made the move to Amsterdam from Glasgow, but has also used the momentum to feed his labels Bio Musik, which have been somewhat stop start in the decade since its inception, and a new label Everysoul who will release a new album “Every Soul Needs a Guide” before the end of the year. Bio has just released a new Watson single and a pair of remixes by the likes of the aforementioned Psychatron, as well as Steve Rachmad and Octave One.

If that wasn’t enough, Watson has been adapting his live performances to include a lot of analogue gear as well as playing traditional DJ sets. Earlier this year he played such a set at Fabric in London for whom he recorded this promo DJ set which showcases his style, decorative and bright, and persuasive, but not forceful.

Vince Watson Fabric Promo Mix 2011 by PullProxy

The Berlin Trilogy

David Bowie is always hard to pin down.  If you are looking for one definitive musical statement as to who he was, whichever one you pick you will be wrong. There is always a conceptual paradox that you will have to accept or a style somehow not reflected in a particular era. But for Bowie the man at least, there is one particular moment where it all came down and came together; an era when one could see Bowie at last playing himself. Before he’d always been a man playing a god and once “Let’s Dance” turned him into a megastar, it was a man who had transcended to be a god playing a man. But the era of Bowie in Berlin is naked Bowie, is a raw man exposed and looking for somewhere to hide.

The so-called Berlin Trilogy of albums, “Low”, “”Heroes”” and “Lodger”, actually a quintet with Iggy Pop’s “The idiot” and “Lust for life” recorded at the same time and place, represent the creative fulcrum of his career. The three combine pop, poetry and theatre, the critical elements of what had come before and what would come after, but added to them the contradictory elements of experimentalism and the quotidian. Quotidian for Bowie and his entourage that is.

After all, the Berlin Trilogy is not only about Bowie, but about a triumvirate of characters, all looking for the same thing at the same time and finding different outcomes. Bowie had come from California and years of cocaine abuse that had left him on the brink and often delusional, including several mythical television appearances.

With him came Iggy Pop, inspiration himself for the Ziggy Stardust character that had led Bowie to the brink. Ironically, Pop had been rescued by Ziggy, both physically from drug addiction and financially, hauled from jail to the studio to get it back together.



Brian Eno, meanwhile, had shed the feathers of his stay in Roxy Music (leaving after their second album) and wound down a solo career to find a new direction with these two misfits. Producer Tony Visconti is a noble fourth, but overall his character has less influence to play here and especially afterwards.

All three eloped to Germany in 1976 to collaborate and invent a new musical future for each of them. Destination German had been chosen for its fervent musical scene (Bowie and Eno, particularly had already been heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, but would soon extend their local music interests).  But also with it came the anonymity they sought, away from their former characters and the shackles of fame, to be themselves. Divided Berlin at the time was an ideal place to lose and find yourself and was a society that understood split personalities and paranoia.

But Berlin was also France and the Château d'Hérouville near Paris where most of Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” was recorded as well as the first side of “Low”. Finishing was done at Hansa Studios in Berlin where the next albums were recorded, though Bowie’s bookend to the era, 1979s “Lodger” was finished in New York and its hazy mixing has the cocaine edge that suggests that coming down hadn’t quite gone to plan.

David Bowie – Low

“Low” was the second album of the 5 to be recorded, but the first to be released, first seeing the light of day in 1977 where it was critically praised but did not seem to make much immediate impression. “The Idiot” was ready to go, but apparently Bowie’s ego meant that his album was to go first so that it would not seem as if he was drawing influence from Iggy. Hailed as the greatest album of the 70s by Pitchfork, “Low” presents the true low of Bowie’s life: cocaine paranoia, drinking, break up of marriage with Angie and artistic burnout after a decade of high living and creative overload. The first side, recorded in the Chateau is Bowie scraping together his life in little bios and half-finished song.

Thomas Jerome Seabrook in his excellent book on this topic makes the valid points of fade outs: everything on this album fades out, shrinks away, worn out or induced to hide again. This is most pronounced on the second side where Bowie’s only lyrics are meaningless words called out from the abyss of “Warszawa”, the opening track of side two and the usual opening track for Bowie’s subsequent tours. Bowie had effectively been rendered speechless from his life and was also fading away. “Warszawa” was also the first key intervention of Eno, who performed most of the music alone, to which additional parts were added. His and Bowie’s fascination for the “very unfocal” forms of the kosmische/krautrock music they were immersing in were essential for fashioning the atypical song structures that would dominate this track and all the albums, especially the ambient tracks which were a shocking inclusion for an album in 1977, Punk’s year zero. This was also the song that gave the early incarnation of Joy Division their name: Warsaw.

But if the ambient side to “Low” and subsequently “”Heroes”” were to illuminate Bowie’s limitations, the lyrics on the first side of each album are full of clues to his vulnerability. For example, the single “Sound and vision” gives Bowie’s state of mind and creative method in intimate and simple detail.

“Pale blinds drawn all day

Nothing to do, nothing to say

Blue, blue

I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision

And I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and vision

Drifting into my solitude, over my head”

Iggy Pop – The Idiot.

According to legend, the lyrics to Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” where largely improvised in Berlin, made up in the spur of the moment with the tracks largely written by Bowie, were already completed in France. As with Bowie’s output, the lyrics are largely biographic, detailing the duos attempts to quit years of drug addiction by drinking, particularly noticeable in the seedy, psychedelic stagger of “Nightclubbing”.

“Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing

We're walking through town

Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing

We walk like a ghost”

Alternatively, “The Dum Dum Boys” is a literal biography of his former group The Stooges written at the behest of Bowie.

“Where are you now my

dum dum boys are you

Alive or dead

Have you left me the last

Of the dum dum daze

Then the sun goes down

And the boys broke down.”

The title of the album was often said to refer to both Bowie and Pop and their social failure at the time, as well as referencing the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Critically, while the album is hailed as a classic, many also complain that it is not really an Iggy Pop album as it seems too far removed from the dirge rock of the Stooges. “The Idiot” has also gone down in rock infamy as being the last album listened to by Ian Curtis on the night he killed himself.

Pop and Bowie subsequently went on tour together to promote the album, with Bowie playing keyboards and trying to keep a low profile and maintain the life style as straight as possible. But inevitably a certain friction began to develop, particularly in the eyes of the critics who viewed Pop as something of a pawn in Bowie’s game, much as Lou Reed had been seen around the time that Bowie and Mick Ronson had recorded “Transformer” with him, an era when Reed had far less influence and fame than he has now come to be associated with.

David Bowie - ”Heroes”

““Heroes”” needs no introduction as it is perhaps Bowie’s most recognisable song. The parenthesis was apparently for irony, though this somewhat undermines the beautiful elliptical lyrics and the wrenching waves of guitar from Robert Fripp providing the signature sound, with the three takes recorded in one day and mixed together on the fly by Eno. This song forms the centre of the trilogy, being its high water mark while also being emblematic of time and place. The lyrics probably refer to Bowie’s declining relationship with his wife, but also recount the story of producer Visconti and his lover, a backing vocalist, meeting for a tryst beneath the Berlin wall which could be seen from the studio window.

The track was also used to great effect in the controversial film “Christiane F”, with a group of disaffected and doomed teenagers running through the empty corridors of a shopping mall in front of the Zoobahnhof station, situated below the forever wounded church that is a reminder of the war. The film uses the bilingual English-German version called “”Helden”” whereas a French version “”Héros”” was also made.

Legend also has it that the name was in part inspired by Neu! and their track “Hero” from their final (official) album “Neu! 75” played here in a rare live version.

The instrumental track “Seed of doubt” from the second side also showcases part of Bowie and Eno’s methods of composition at the time, which often relied on Eno’s “Oblique strategies” method. The Oblique Strategies are a series of cards with cryptic phrases on them and used much like tarot or John Cage’s I-ching compositional method to overcome creative blocks and obstacles or to forge new, unexpected directions. In this track, both Bowie and Eno had drawn contradictory cards, putting them in compositional opposition to each other with interesting results.

“”Heroes”” is also ostensibly a drinking album, with many tracks mentioning alcohol or taking place in bars, such as the line from “”Heroes””

“And you, you can be mean

And I, I´ll drink all the time”

Whereas

“Joe the lion

Went to the bar

A couple of drinks on the house an' he said

"Tell you who you are…””

Meanwhile the track “Blackout” says it all in the title, referring to a dark episode in Bowie’s life where he may have even suffered is first heart problems.

The cover of “”Heroes”” also seems to contain some kind of code. Beautifully showcasing Bowie’s mismatched eyes, the oblique hand gesture and robotic poise seem to hide or suggest something else. Indeed, the cover of “The Idiot” sports a similar poise and both were apparently influenced by Erich Heckel's painting “Roquairol”, though some have also claimed a lot of influence from Egon Schiele as well.

Iggy Pop –Lust for Life

After the chagrin of appearing as Bowie’s “stooge” on “The Idiot”, Pop took a more active role in the writing and production of “Lust for Life”. The music is more optimistic and the lyrics more self-confident, particularly on the title track which given the circumstances is a remarkable transformation, but somewhat contradictory given Iggy's behaviour at the time.

“I'm worth a million in prizes

Yeah, I'm through with sleeping on the sidewalk

No more beating my brains

No more beating my brains

With the liquor and drugs”

The first tour to promote “The Idiot” had been somewhat more restrained, but with Punk now in full swing and widely hailing Iggy and the Stooges as their ancestors, it was not long before Pop was back into old, dirty habits and riding the wave of success to oblivion. This video of “The Passenger”, the second iconic track from “Lust for life” shows Pop clearly wired and stoking the vibe.

“Oh, the passenger

He rides and he rides

He sees things from under glass

He looks through his window's eye

He sees the things he knows are his”

The release of “Lust for Life” effectively spelled the end of Pop and Bowie’s close relationship as suggested by this famous video from the Australian tv show Countdown, filmed here in 1979, with an erratic Iggy showing with body language at least, that he was uncomfortable with living in Bowie's shadow. Bowie did however, return to cover “China Girl” and “Tonight” on his respective “Let’s Dance” and “Tonight” albums in the 80s,the later with Tina Turner, paving and payign the way for another Iggy Pop return.

David Bowie – Lodger

Lodger is perhaps Bowie’s first failure to really find new ground since his breakthrough a decade before. This is perhaps not surprising after such a long creatively rich period and the gradual breakdown of artistic relations with both Pop and Eno. Indeed, Eno apparently was charged with directing many of the sessions for Lodger in Bowie’s absence, using only his Oblique Strategy cards which somewhat offended Bowie’s team of musicians.

“DJ” is proto-Talking Heads from the lyrical phrasing to the edgy, post-punk rhythm. It is no surprise that Eno went on to work with them after the “”Heroes”” sessions, appearing first on their 1978 album “More Songs About Buildings and Food” but with more rewarding results on 1979s “Fear of music” and 1980s “Remain in light”. The lyrics also touch on one of Bowie’s major themes emerging from this time, which is fame, mixed with his usual preoccupation with existentialism.

“I am the DJ

I am what I play

I´ve got believers

Believing in me”

Parts of the video were filmed in central London with a real Bowie surprising real people in the street for an unrehearsed walk.

“Look back in anger” is indeed one of Bowie’s angriest moments and had a video directed to recall Oscar Wilde’s “Dorian Grey”, perhaps again signifying Bowie’s clash with fame and existence/identity as he aged.

“Look back in anger

Driven by the night

Until you come”

Legacy.

The legacy of the five albums from the Berlin period is uncountable. Not only are their numerous high profile covers, from Grace Jones to Siouxsie and the Banshees as well as many imitators, particularly Gary Numan. But perhaps the most significant legacy is Bowie’s breaching of the divide between pop and electronic instrumentation and the recasting of the pop arrangement into more fluid forms. As influenced as Bowie, Pop and Eno were by Krautrock, the legacy also turned full circle with Krautrock paying its homage to them. Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider had been name dropped on “V-2 Schneider”, the opening track on side 2 of “”Heroes””, but Kraftwerk also returned the favour in perhaps their most famous song "Trans Europe Express", dropping the line:

“From station to station, back to Düsseldorf City

To meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie

Trans Europe Express”

(around 3 minute mark).

Station to Station of course also clverely refers to Bowie's 1975 album of that bname and neatly fits into the groups railway themed lyrics.