DER PLAN - Die Peitsche des Lebens

"The final instalment (for now) in Bureau B's little series of classic Der Plan album reissues. That's Frank, Kurt, and Moritz right there on the cover, inside Harry Rosenberg's Hamburger Hafen Basar* -- the Plan's own version of the Style Council's Favourite Shop. You may not find the cool mods attire that graced the Weller and Talbot emporium, but Harry's was a treasure trove of exotica: fetishes, amulets, masks, handicrafts from the South Seas, even shrunken heads. The kind of things seafarers brought back with them from distant voyages. It would cost you two Deutschmarks to see the miniature skulls of the unfortunates. Harry himself had a long, white bushy beard, proper sea dog material. The basis of the harbor bazar's collection can be traced back to the eccentric Cap'n Haase, self-proclaimed "professor of undiscovered science", who died in 1934. Not a bad title for the next Plan album or box: these Professors of Undiscovered Science have forever been on a musical mission to seek out and shine a light on undiscovered phenomena. It is no surprise that this perfectly chosen photograph reminiscent of a certain Dr Henry Walton Jones Jr. Moritz R, a keen collectors of artifacts from the Makonde province of Mozambique, was a frequent visitor to the bazar, whilst Pyrolator was particularly in awe of the Africa room: "Voodoo dolls hanging from the ceiling, needles sticking out of them, flecked with blood. Scary stuff. Bundles of seedy St.Pauli-Nachrichten papers and other porn magazines on the floor. When I asked Harry about this bizarre combination of wares, his answer was short and to the point: '... it banishes the spells.'" Why are there so many cigars on the table and what about the song El Cigarro? Moritz R looks back: "That's how we rolled in those days. You could put it down to juvenile obsession, smoking cigars, drinking whisky, snorting coke (not me!) --that's just how it was, partying hard." Eleven years had passed since the release of Geri Reig, their debut album. Tiki and electronica, noise and schlager, psychedelia and industrial, Kurt Martin and jerry-rigging, Cargo Cult and Ata Tak, Wuppertal and Düsseldorf, Hans-Albers-Platz and West-Berlin, Emulator I and Emulator II, old pizzas and new masks, making the most out of the least and living in the gallery, abstraction and pop, Japan and Japlan. A lot going on in those eleven years!" - Bureau B.