Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!

Or, Nuclear power? No, thanks! Earthstar formed in the US, but were based in Germany by 1979/80 when this album was recorded. Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!, their third album, was their second for the Hamburg-based Sky Records label, whose roster also included the likes of Cluster and Michael Rother. Main man Craig Wuest was a keyboardist/composer with a fascination for European electronic music, who had been encouraged to relocate from his native Utica, NY, by synth guru Klaus Schulze.

The use of electronics is balanced by piano and electric guitar on the opener 'Golden Rendezvous', a mellow & meandering number with a spaciously pastoral air about it. Synthesizers dominate on several other tracks, however, such as the sprightly 'Sonntagsspaziergang' ('Sunday Walk'). Among the instruments Wuest is credited as playing, is something called a Birotron B-90, a mellotron-like contraption of which only a dozen or so examples were ever made. 'Cafe Exit', the first track on side 2, is apparently where it can be heard to best advantage.

I bought this record from an ebay seller last September, having happened upon Earthstar's previous album French Skyline in the local charity shop, one of a trove of fairly obscure '70s and early '80s electronic music LPs that had presumably all been deposited there as part of a single donation.

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All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

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Ein Schattenspiel, etc.

Georg Friedrich Haas is a contemporary Austrian composer of "art music". "Haas's style recalls that of György Ligeti in its use of micropolyphony, microintervals and the exploitation of the overtone series; he is often characterized as a leading exponent of spectral music" says wikipedia. Only a relative few of his many compositions have been issued on CD - many more of them can be found on YouTube. On this 2020 disc are three of his works in which standard classical instrumentation is augmented and altered by "live electronics". Two are string quartets and one is for solo piano. Is a string quartet still really a quartet if there are meanwhile some other people with laptops busily twizzling the sound? There is a live performance video of the 'String Quartet No. 7', the first work on the disc, where the JACK Quartet are supplemented by a trio of sound boffins to realise the composition. Whether it's properly a quartet or a septet is neithe...

This is a Recording

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