DORAU, ANDREAS - Demokratie

German new wave (Neue Deutsche Welle, NDW) reached its peak in 1983. In the public eye, Andreas Dorau was considered an important representative of NDW. But the sensitive artist had no desire to be thrown in the same basket as the terrible monstrosities of what had become a commercially exploited trend. Not that he felt any closer to the contemporary underground" music of the day. "All far too dark. I didnt want to have anything more to do with music. Back then underground music wasnt allowed to be melodic. The dominant belief was: melody = stupid. And I wanted melodies." Dorau turned his back to the music business and moved to Munich and took his film studies seriously. Until one day, Ata Tak founder Moritz Rrr called him up and asked Dorau if he fancied an informal exchange of ideas with artists from Berlin, no strings attached. He did fancy it, and slowly but surely, he began to have fun again with music. At the same time, Dorau amassed a formidable record collection, largely from the 1960s. And so names like The Left Banke, Van Dyke Parks and The Move rotated on his record player. The idea to make a new album dawned on him gradually. Dorau recorded, discarded material, wrote lyrics, overdubbed, arranged, discarded more material. So, he would rearrange, one track after another, so on and so forth. It was clearly a painstaking process. Says Dorau: "I wanted to create pop music, as far as possible without guitars, simply different." Baroque pop/Roy Wood/Michael Nyman/melodies/no guitars, or thereabouts/electronics/Mayo Thompson also gets in on the act: an interesting mix! Includes two bonus tracks." - Bureau B