Hamburg Helper

Palais Schaumburg MP3s:  Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt  |  Gute Luft

Before pacifier-suckling teens of the mid-90s were fondling each others' facial topography to the beat of The Orb (real audio, from an archive of Hatch's show) in the wee hours of the morn, Thomas Fehlmann (real audio from Lou's show) synced his keyboard to Holger Hiller's (real audio from Ken's show) synth in Hamburg under the name Palais Schaumburg. This early 80's project was textbook Germanic new wave dancey bliss on top of nervous horns and paranoid vocals, its founding members barely holding on through a self-titled LP release before venturing off to other projects (remaining members made an artistic detour from the original sound, releasing another few albums). Take a listen to "Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt" (MP3; translation: we're building a new city) and "Gute Luft" (MP3; translation: good air), clearly some awesome tunes, from the 1981 self-titled release.

Ok, now check out the video for "Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt" (.mov, 39MB) and soak in the air drumming, Germans in turtlenecks, that funky unplugged bassman, Germans in turtlenecks, perhaps the first-ever documentation of the running-man, and Germans in turtlenecks, all playing out like some sort of bizarre teutonic sitcom. I believe the gentleman at EmptyFree.com was correct in calling out Mike Myers for stealing their fresh dance moves on that old SNL sketch called "Sprockets."

UPDATE: Thomas Fehlmann did a live set on OCDJ's show last year with Gudrun Gut (ex-Einsturzende Neubauten and Malaria!, current big-wig at Moabit Records and Monika Enterprise), give it a listen (real audio). Fehlmann and Gut currently host a weekly radio show together on Radio Eins in Berlin.

Thanks to Zoms Frenchman of the band Zom Zoms for hooking up the video connection

Comments

[Mark]

Well, whadya know! After only just finding yr blog via Boing Boing and then subscribing, almost the first thing that shows up is Palais Schaumburg - Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt.

This was one of quite a few promo's we made back then at our (After Image) studio in Brixton. I seem to remember it was something to do with David Cunningham (of Flying Lizards & Piano Records fame) who worked along side us in the same studio complex. I think he was producing them. We'd almost forgotten all about it. Good to see it get an airing after all these years.

[WmMBerger]

Liz, love Palais Schaumburg and the Neue Deutsche Welle of the 80s. I've recently been trying to fill the gaps in my ZickZack singles collection via downloads. Thanks for the post, especially the video!

[DS Helder]

A piece of pedantry: It wasn't so much that "its founding members barely held on" as Holger Hiller left, taking with him the core talent of the group.