Wednesday 2 September 2009

BILLY MACKENZIES VOCAL EXPERIMENTS

Mentioning Ken Hyder's global collaborations yesterday reminded me of the lesser known fact about Billy Mackenzie when he too dabbled in musical cross-fertilisation in the mid 80's.
I have an album by Holger Hiller on which Billy guests. Holger was in German post punk band Palais Schaumburg. However, this recording session was completely different to what either had done previously, resulting in some very avant garde, experimental, unconventional slices of contemporary composition. It took me a few plays to familiarise myself with the content, but once acquainted with the material, it is a real treat.
I've had this LP since 1986 and it's called "Oben Im Eck".
As well as Billy, there is Holger Hiller & Moritz Von Oswald, from Germany, and Izu Mi Kobayashi & Kaori Kano, from Japan.
The track below from the album is called "Whippets" and has Billy vocalising like you've never heard before, sounding something like a ninja battling it out with Godzilla!!
The images here haven't got anything to do with the LP recording, I just thought the photos of The Associates playing in Japan in 1985 fitted the "global" theme.
Actually, there is a wee connection, Moritz Von Oswald who played on Whippets, was the drummer for The Associates in Japan.
Previously he too was in Palais Schaumburg, but now Moritz is more known for running the brilliant Techno/Dub label - Basic Channel, in Berlin.


4 comments:

  1. Love your page! - hope you don't mind me putting links to it on my bebo tribute site! Mags
    http://www.bebo.com/attheedgeoftheworld

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  2. Dear Retro Dundee,
    I am the daughter of Moritz Oswald from Berlin and I was so excited to see this beautiful poster on your blog showing my father in Japan with Billy. I would like to make a nice print for my father and I wanted to ask if you maybe even have a higher quality scan / better resolution? In any case, thank you so much for your blog and take care. Elisabeth

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  3. Hi Elisabeth
    Click onto the image to bring up the large version.
    If that's still not big enough, you'll have to email me for one.
    GG

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi!
    Thanks a lot - I send an email to the aol email address. Hope that’s fine! Best Elisabeth

    ReplyDelete