"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