Description
Reissue of all of Elephant Chateau's output from 88-90. Highly sought after and recommended if you dug the Mariah reissue. Songs leave us cold or we fall in love with them instantly. That's probably what happened to Okonkole y Trompa 2017 when he wrote a euphoric review of Dreamings by Elephant Chateau on his weblog and infected quite a few music diggers. And dreamings was not the only song that found its way to listeners and into their legs, as songs or as remix material.
The 30-year delay between creation and discovery is astonishing. But as Veith Stauffer already wrote in 1998 on "Offshore Drilling" "One of the most underrated albums in the history of experimental rock music in Switzerland". From 17 April 2020, the productions of Elephant chateau are now available again. With the title "Dreamings & Offshore Drilling - Pearls and Turtles" the Hamburg label Bureau B combines the 12" Maxi released in 1985 and the CD/LP "Offshore Drilling" released in 1990. "Offshore Drilling" is a work full of emotion, melancholy and unacademic joy of experimentation. (Veit Stauffer, April 1991)
The recordings show the work of "Elephant Chateau" in a variety of different formations with various guest musicians, recorded between 1982 and 1989. Well-sounding film music ("Le Fin"), free jazz experiments ("J'aime rien") and ambient electronics ("Nebellied") up to the showpiece "Wir fangen mit der Arbeit anfangen", a German monologue spoken by the American artist Marlene McCarthy, accompanied by a sensual crackling sound backdrop. The songs are of a kind that could not be done today. Elephant Chateau emerged from this collaboration with Marlene McCarthy, as a loose formation for a performative publication of texts. The core consisting of Max Spielmann (git, keyb), Johannes Vetsch (bs, voc, keyb) and until 1986 Christian Schaffner (git, voc, perc) continued working afterwards. With Franziska Strebel (dr, perc) it became something like a band, with the claim to record credible intellectual rock music. They exploited the sound spectrum of the 80s, from analog synthesizers and rhythm machines to samplers and digital effects units without technoid coldness, but full of emotion, melancholy and unacademic joy of experimentation. Analogue songs like "We start with work" and "j'aime rien" stand besides rhythm and sequencer tracks like "Dreamings" or "Fog Song", which often brought the available technology to its knees, at least live.
