Musiccargo Album "Hand in Hand" (downloads) out now!Buy at ITunes: Buy at amazon
The debut album from Düsseldorf’s Musiccargo links Germany’s experimental musical legacy from the last several decades to today’s vibrant, eclectic dancefloors: in widescreen, technicolour vision.
Guitarist and vocalist Gerhard Michel (born 1966) started playing in Düsseldorf punk bands at the age of 16, and during a stint in psychedelic rock band Stranger Than Paradise he met Klaus Dinger (founder of NEU!, La Düsseldorf and drummer on the first Kraftwerk album). From 1988 to 1994 he collaborated exclusively with Klaus Dinger, producing the releases Die Engel Des Herrn and Die (b) Engel Des Herrn Live. After a solo stint as Michel, in 2004 he met current collaborator Gordon Pohl. Gordon (born 1973) is a Dutch-born DJ, aesthete & electronic music producer who grew up playing records at his father club The Americans on the German island Sylt, before going on to hold a residency at Düsseldorf’s Ratinger Hof, where he played alongside many of Detroit’s best-loved artists, as well as at clubs across Europe.This is an album that makes joyful use of Germany’s musical heritage. Italian afro/cosmic pioneer Beppe Loda has called Musiccargo “Die Neue NEU!” (“The new NEU!”). Gerhard Michel’s experiences working with Klaus Dinger are an obvious link to acts from the last decades in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Munich. Whether you call it krautrock, kosmiche muzik, or techno, you’ll literally hear echoes of all those legendary side-projects and jam sessions of the ‘70s and ‘80s. The German word for ‘sequences’, Klanganeinanderreihungen, better captures the layered way these beats unfold: one on top of each other, in a seemingly non-delineated progression.Musiccargo bring all their influences into a present-day context, energetic and very much alive: as at home in a live venue on the east coast of the USA, as in Düsseldorf’s tiny cult venue Salon des Amateurs – the bar attached to the Künsthalle contemporary art gallery – and the epicentre of a fertile musical scene to which Musiccargo belong. At the Salon des Amateurs, experimental film nights meet instrumental UK punk acts, lo-fi funk, louche Mexican electronica and exuberant analogue disco strung together with the twang of cowboy guitars.Amontillado label boss Ralf Beck, in talking about Musiccargo’s sound, conjures the 1960s and the writing of Humphry Osmond and Aldous Huxley. It’s easy to see why. In tracks like Tiefengrund and Morgenglut, a tambourine jitters, while polyphonic synths drone like a sitar heard from outer space. Long delay loops provide a backdrop for dreamy guitar lines. Tage Voller Sonnenschein is a virtual beer-hall serenade, as sung in an opium den on top of the Alps. You could imagine it fitting into a set by some of Cologne’s more opulent minimalists.Tracks like Der Schmetterling (‘the butterfly’) and Eller 119 would on the other hand sit comfortably alongside many of today’s young experimental American bands: vocal textures and distorted guitar loops, or euphoric piano and synth gurgles over the top of jittery programmed drums in a disjointed but proud march. There’s a wide-open, optimistic feeling to these songs.
Musiccargo songs have been included on compilations such as: Prins Thomas - Cosmo Galactic Prism (Eskimo Records) / The Dysfunctional Family (Kill the DJ) / Box Jams (Clone).The album will be released as an LP , CD and digital format and will be supported by a full touring schedule during Spring / Summer 2009.www.musiccargo.org
