The Squid's Ear Magazine


Konrad Strumpfel & The Set: refrescoscopio [CASSETTE] (Music a la Coque)

An unissued album from Bavarian experimenter & songwriter Konrad Strumpfel and "The Set", the Czech duo of Herbert Lukundra & Josif Afkak, who added their contributions to Strumpfel's work which had been sent to them by post, the strengthening of the "Iron Curtain" between the USSR & Europe in the late 80s then prohibiting the release of their collaboration.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Konrad Strumpfel-composer, performer

Herbert Lukundra

Josif Afkak


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Label: Music a la Coque
Catalog ID: COQ - 013
Squidco Product Code: 29512

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: France
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded in 1988.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Born in the first half of the 70's in Ergoldsbach, a small village in the Bavarian countryside, Konrad Strumpfel attends the music laboratory of the local Gymnasium and begins to familiarize with keyboards, synthesizers and electronic instruments. He becomes a skilled composer and arranger, records several compositions in his bedroom and sets aside the study of piano and violin. His first productions on tape reach two young Czechoslovakian musicians, Herbert Lukundra and Josif Afkak, who contact him with great enthusiasm to seek his collaboration on a new project. In 1988, the Iron Curtain divides Europe in two, therefore the collaboration between Konrad and the two young Czechoslovaks is strewn with numerous difficulties. The final tape, complete with voices and percussion recorded by Lukundra and Afkak, will not cross the border and will never reach Konrad's hands. After 32 years, the lost and never released recordings of Konrad Strumpfel and The Set, see the light thanks to Music a la Coque."-Music a la Coque



"Italy's Musique A La Coque specializes in re-issuing music with a strong focus on stranger outings from the world no wave, no folk, free jazz, free improvisation and such like, and as such have a solid unique position (well, that goes to say, from my perspective). A lot of the bands they find in archives are unknown to me. Konrad Strumpfel & The Set, for instance, is such a band, consisting of one Konrad Strumpfel, born in the first half of the 70s in Bavaria, who started with keyboards and synthesizers when in high school. His first musical pieces end up in Czechoslovakia (when that was still one country) with Herbert Lukundra and Josif Afkak. This was in 1988 and the three worked together (how old was Strumpfel then, I wondered? 13, 14?), I assume by sending cassettes back and forth, which wasn't easy in the days of the Cold War. The result, in which The Set added voices and percussion, never reached Strumpfel and now this lost recording is released. A short tape, clocking in at some seventeen minutes, with fourteen short pieces, all-around one minute. There is a great naive quality to this music, reminding me of Der Plan and The Residents, that very early Holger Hiller/Thomas Fehlmann cassette. The voices have a children-like quality and the percussion lie on a table and gets banged upon. Coupled with the keyboards by Strumpfel, chaotic, controlled, stabbing, melodic, mildly distorted with tapes spun backwards (on all the sources at any time in these pieces) and with the short period, it all adds to punky energy of the music. It is funny, strange, wild, raw and mellow and as such the perfect addition to the catalogue of this label."-Frans de Ward


Get additional information at Vital Weekly

Artist Biographies

Bavarian experimental song writer and musician Konrad Strumpfel is known for his work in the 1980s with the Czechoslovakian duo of Herbert Lukundra and Josif Afkak, also known as The Set.

-Squidco 3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. The Big Sky In The Eye 01:41

2. Space Rocket Salad 01:06

3. Porcupines 01:12

4. Living Thing 01:11

5. Gotham City Shuffe 00:47

6. Horror Song 01:17

7. Frenetic Fingers 00:56

SIDE B



1. sregniF CitenerF 00:56

2. gnoS rorroH 01:17

3. mahtoG ytiC effuhS 00:47

4. gnihT gniviL 01:11

5. senipucroP 01:12

6. dalaS tekcoR ecapS 01:06

7. eyE ehT nI ykS giB ehT 01:41

Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Rock and Related
Song Based Music
Solo Artist Recordings
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
New in Rock Forms

Cassettes
Rock and Related
Song Based Music
Solo Artist Recordings
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
New in Rock Forms

Search for other titles on the label:
Music a la Coque.


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