As Only German Communists Could
Treating Music as a National Project
One of the great values of Bandcamp is the ability to search for music by granular tags. There are the upper-level tags: Rock, Metal, Alternative, Hip-Hop/Rap. Punk. Jazz. Then there are the subordinate genres:
At some point when I was in the Army, I started getting into Krautrock. I tend to express immediate love for German art--a consequence of a Modern German History course I took in college. There's a scene in the Wim Wenders movie Wings of the Desire where Damiel the Angel is strolling through the Berlin Library expressing various protective gestures and acknowledgements to the people within. I think it's one of the best scenes in film.
The Berlin series of comic books by Jason Lutes is a masterpiece of historical graphic fiction.
However it happened, I started diving into Krautrock as a music genre. I think I was listening to a lot of Mogwai and they have some Krautrock / Motorik aesthetics. Its possible that my love for pre-2010s Queens of the Stone Age predicted my interest in the German-born genre.
Simplified, Krautrock and I guess more specifically Motorik is a genre that is structured around a persistent, high bpm 4/4 rhythm with a repeating guitar riff with maybe accenting synthesizers.
The song "Hallogallo" off of Neu!'s self-titled is a perfect example of the krautrock motorik rhythm. The drums are at a constant 4/4 with the snare hitting every 2nd and 4th beat. The hi-hat receiving every beat. And a crash or a short snare fill only to indicate a new measure. One guitar holds a constant riff with another affected by a reversing track providing the "variation" to the song. Early Queens of the Stone Age has this as an influence on their rhythmic momentum all over it.
I started to plunge into the Bandcamp "Krautrock" tag at the time and came across the Komischer Laufer "The Secret Cosmic Music of the East German Olympic Program" volumes.
Historically, I'm aware that the East German communist government was in many cases even more oppressive and abusive than the bulk of the Soviet Union. And their doping of Olympic athletes is well known at this point.
But artistically, the Komischer Laufer volumes express how even state-sponsored music can be just as rich as music created in a comparatively free society. Just look at soviet mosaic to see how centralized committees can sponsor masterpieces, occasionally.
The music was composed by Martin Zeichnete, who is possibly be fictional, but I'll act as if he were the real composer.
The first volume contains five driving krautrock-style songs structured to allow an athlete to run five kilometers including a warm up and warm down track. And while listening to the music, it makes perfect sense to visualize yourself in a huge indoor track in some soviet athletic center with the music sounding from a PA large enough to resonate across the whole facility.
Volume 2 expands to include tracks for a gymnastics warmup and figure skating exercises.
Volumes 3-5 including even more running programs and tributes to specific East German athletes.
The musical series is an expression of a total dedication to national identity that it seems like only communists, especially mid-century communists, are able to execute. Our athletes will have the most modern facilities. The most competitive performance enhancing drugs. And the most hypnotic and motivational soundtrack.
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