#Grauzone

[littleplasticthings]

Eisbär, Grauzone, 1981 

[circleofshit]

[radiophd]

grauzone -- film 2

[mycatstupid7]

Grauzone - Eisbaer

[bandcampsnoop]

10/8/24.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I fell in love with the live sets from Grauzone that popped up on my Bandcamp player. This week the same thing happened with The Deep Freeze Mice (Leicester, England).

We posted about this band over two years ago, and since then, I've enjoyed the band's periodic appearance on shuffle. But, I'd never heard the live set. It made me go back and listen to the band (active from the late 1970s to the late 1980s) and realize what a hidden gem they were. As stated back in 2022, they were well-versed in pop and experimental.

I found this compilation on Bandcamp. It was released by Night People (I own a few of their releases including the Peak Twins/Scott & Charlene's Wedding split - but this label had great taste...just check out their catalogue). It's a fantastic, manageable introduction to a band that sounds like a cross between Josef K, The Nightengales and The June Brides. And sometimes the lyrics remind me a bit of Neutrals.

Copies of this compilation can be found on Discogs. The band (and those that came after The Deep Freeze Mice) has a label on Bandcamp - Cordelia Records.

[msolciac]

[cinnabargirl]

Hey girls did you now that ummmm ich möchte ein eisbär sein im kalten polar dann müsste ich nicht mehr schreien alles wär so klar ANNANABSNSNNSNSNANNANANANANANANNANSNAN pipipipiipipipiipipii

[circleofshit]

"Let's spend a lot of money"

[stradarecords]

GRAUZONE / EISBAR : WE RELEASE WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT (12") 1980年に結成されたスイスのニューウェイヴ～ポスト・パンク系バンドGrauzoneによる1981年の大人気盤が正規復刻！ダンサブルなタイトル曲、オール・インストゥルメンタル・プレ・テクノ傑作のB1、シンセ・ポップとドゥーワップの融合したようなB2の3曲を収録！ #Grauzone #THEFUCKWEWANT #coldwave #synth #newwave #postpank #12inch #strdcoldwave #strd12inch #vinyl#record#stradarecords#dj#vinyljunkies#kobe#motomachi#strada#recordshop#recordstore#神戸レコード#元町レコード#レコード店#レコード#アナログ https://www.stradarecords.com/shop/item/28424/index.php (at Strada Records) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpzn5HSv3gY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[rainydawgradioblog]

Catharsis by proxy

Makthaverskan, Grauzone 2023

By Caroline Carr

Located 40 miles outside of Amsterdam, the festival began at sundown in Paard, an expansive venue inconspicuously tucked away on a main road in The Hague, Netherlands. Grauzone Festival, a 3-day music and arts event, was celebrating its 10th anniversary beginning on the 10th of February. Though performance art pieces, movie screenings, and live music would go on throughout the early evening, the main event, in my eyes, was not for a few more hours. 

A group of now twenty-somethings are laughing in the green room before their performance as they recount the band's origin, as teenagers who met in the schools and skateparks of Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2009, Makthaverskan has been assembling a cohesive discography that transcends their commonly ascribed genres of post-punk and indie synthpop. Over the last decade, they have managed to maintain a relatively consistent style and distinct sound that is dreamy albeit commanding. “It’s a natural change,” said lead singer Maja Milner. “I’m not 15 anymore, I don’t have the same things to scream about". 

The 2021 release, “För Allting,” was the group’s most recent and most polished album yet. With a producer and a more narrative structure, the album was elevated without sacrificing rawness or passion. “We wanted to develop a more coherent album [rather] than a collection of songs,” said bassist Hugo Randulv. Coming in with the neat studio album top of mind, I was eager to see how the group would recreate the power and melodrama of it all onstage. 

Below ground, on Paard’s cafe stage, the group transformed the space effortlessly and immediately. An absolute powerhouse, Milner embodied the sentiment of the band’s name which loosely translates to a feminized version of someone who holds power. The performance evoked a hazy dream state, with the atmosphere driven by the synth drawing out Milner’s notes into mystical wails that stick to the walls of the listener’s mind. 

Throughout the evening, members’ gazes were fixed on their instruments and each other. Milner spent much of the set facing away from the crowd, singing to her bandmates and hitting a tambourine against her leg. An outside onlooker may have mistaken this as a lack of connection with the crowd, but from where I stood, it was patently more indicative of the bond and history the band shared. The group moved with a seamless cohesion, presumably born out of decades-long friendship, performance, and collaboration.

Though they operated as one, do not mistake their synchronicity for homogeneity. Members have explored outside projects in different styles that bring productive friction to the group’s creative process. “There has to be some tension to it otherwise it wouldn’t be interesting,” said Randulv. With each person contributing different perspectives and specialties, Makthaverskan is a genreless pastiche that synthesizes the best of each member’s musical stylings and lyricism. 

Onstage, Milner’s melancholic lyrics hide in plain sight, disguised between drawn-out, siren-like notes that pull you in with their beauty and force you to reckon with the weight of the words. “No matter what I write, it gets melancholic,” said Milner. “I can’t write happy [songs].” From “In my Dreams” to “This Time,” the set brimmed with cathartic autobiographies that lull you into bliss with their melodies and shake you awake with their lyrics. 

Even on tracks like “Maktologen” and “Tomorrow” which might strike a passive listener as optimistic with peppy intros, the lyrics are soaked in misery. Tracks like these further the plot of “För Allting” as well as predict the band's general trajectory, respectively. With “Maktologen,” the album ends on a surprisingly high note as the preceding tracks spoke of woes of black-and-white thinking, wasted time, and struggling with others and one’s own selfishness. “Tomorrow” with similar themes, and juxtapositions between lyrics and sound, foreshadows the band’s future projects. If the title did not already give it away, Randulv selected this song that he was specifically happy with that could serve as a compass for the forthcoming album that is still in an early creative stage. 

In the interim, the live performance rejuvenated earlier favorites from previous albums and left me with a new top pick: “Outshine.” Compared to the album version that echoed as if it were recorded in a vacant stadium, Milner’s vocals were at the forefront of the live rendition. Her voice, seasoned and matured over the years since the song’s release in 2013, perfectly contrasted with the youthful longing that guided the lyrics. As the evening wrapped up neatly with the yearning belting of “Leda,” a standout from “III,” the room still hummed with the leftover energy and rambunctious audience members reeling from the set. Though the show had ended, the fond memory would linger, keeping me enticed and tuned into whatever might come next for Makthaverskan. 

[bandcampsnoop]

9/24/24.

I don't really like to post about the same release twice. I think we've done it before but rarely.

Grauzone were a Bern, Switzerland band active back in the 1980s. I've been listening to the Live album that is part of this wonderful box set released by WRWTFWW (We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want) Records back in 2021.

This live set rips and doesn't totally sound like their recorded output. Really, it sounds like a live band from New Zealand in the 1980s. I can help but think of The Clean or early Chills live. It also reminds me of early Feelies. It's that good. While the box sets are sold out on Bandcamp, you can find reasonably priced ones on Discogs.

If nothing else listen to Grauzone Live I and Live II and just imagine how good this must have been in person.