Today’s premiere comes to you from the illustrious German label Toy Tonics. Presented by label bosses Mathias Munk Modica and Kapote, Teutonik Disaster showcases the crazy funky side of Germany’s underground disco and new wave from the late 70’s and early 80’s, as they are reworked into dance floor stompers. Most of these bands didn’t reach a bigger audience. Their records never got pressed to more than 300 – 500 copies as they were a number of years ahead of the huge commercial explosion of German pop in 1984: The NDW aka “Neue Deutsche Welle”, with Nena’s humongous hit 99 Red Balloons. The bands featured on the compilation released their music before the NDW hype and later broke up. Plenty of these early bands are best forgotten but if you dig deeper you’ll find the gems, bursting with style and attitude. And that’s just what Toy Tonics heads Mathias Munk Modica & Kapote did. They hit gold.
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While the whole EP is a spectacular peek into a time capsule of German boogie, our choice for the premiere today is a reowork of Carmen’s “Schlaraffenland” by Kapote. Like most of the songs on this EP, Schlaraffenland originally came out in 1982. Carmen’s amazingly sensual German vocals stand out and the groove could easily have been on a Blondie or Talking Heads album. The song was co-produced by Piet Klocke, who was part of another white boy funk group called Die Tanzdiele and later became a comedy star on German TV. Carmen’s sound draws a parallel to the New York Art-Funk Scene, as reimagined through a Soviet Era German lens. The track is a steady burning boogie anthem.
Dylan T.
