BUTZMANN, FRIEDER - Vertrauensmann Des Volkes

limited edition of 333, re-release of the (rare) 1981 LP, featuring: GENESIS P-ORRIDGE (first recording of Just Drifting"/"Tales of Death"), Axel Hacke (Einst_֬_rzende Neubauten), Angelika Maisch, Hideto, Christian Kneisel\r\nChristian Bohn wrote (1982): "ZIVILISATION" is his record_Ǭ´s centrepiece, a perfect example of his dismantling process (to re-build): a bleak electronic storm blows barely discernibly in the distance, and, to the remorseless swing of hammer on steel, Butzmann sourly declaims against the cheapening and decay of the human spirit. The mood is taken up on the final track_Ǭ´s collaboration with Genesis P-Orridge, who recites in a resigned monotone the self-explanatory "JUST DRIFTING / TALES OF DEATH" - "Every time you feel a little joy / Somebody stamps on it" - to a shrivelling mix of grey atmospherics and a nervous tic... ...and that same mood is more localised on the most cutting song, " SADISMUS UND KONKURRENZ", which pinpoints the source of the spiritual malaise, when Butzmann duets with composer Angelika Maisch (in a fabulously uneven croon) such lines as: "Competition and sadism / That is the german mechanism". Butzmann_Ǭ´s points are made with both bitterness and concern, through methods guaranteed to unsettle listeners without alienating to the point of turning off. Although his materials are often nagging noises, occasionally clumsily arranged, the dramas he constructs from them are conventionally approachable, if for no other reason than that they_Ǭ´re fired by his humanist spirit. Don_Ǭ´t hold back." - 90% Wasser. Highly Recommended!