Klaus Dinger + Japandorf (2013) / Pre-Japandorf - 2000! (rel. 2017)

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks again for all your comments and support, especially through the, well, slightly trying times of last November.  Got so many helpful suggestions after (repeatedly) losing tons of files that hopefully this blog is now better protected from any further meltdowns.  In terms of the future, I'm hoping that SGTG will last another full year of three posts per week - may have to scale back before that though, but will keep you lovely folk in the loop as to my plans.

For now, here's the final appearance of an SGTG tradition - starting the new year with a Klaus Dinger post.  This'll be its final appearance as I've now posted his entire post-Neu! catalogue - but who knows, we might get more from the archives someday.  Today though, here's the last two releases to date from the fascinating career of a unique artist.  Following Dinger's death in March 2008, his partner Miki Yui began finalising the recordings that she and Dinger, plus Japanese-German musicians Masaki Nakao, Satoshi Okamoto and Kazuyuki Onouchi had been recording in 2007-8.  The album, Klaus Dinger + Japandorf, was released in March 2013.

What emerged on the album was a strong set of material that tempered Dinger's improvisational instincts with succinct, upbeat Japanese pop.  Dinger still stretched out, on the two 'Sketch' tracks, with a garagey fuzztone that resulted in his most vital and exciting music in years, and the obligatory Cha Cha 2000 was more of a psychedelic remix than another straight play-through.  The shorter songs had the strongest Japanese influence, whether in a funky electric piano-led ode to cooking Udon broth or almost unbearably poignant in Spacemelo, which became Miki Yui's farewell to Dinger when she added her vocals after his death.  The album as a whole was a more than worthy tribute to Dinger, but it only told part of the Japandorf story...

...which began in 1998 immediately after the final la! NEU? concert.  After playing, Dinger was approached by Nakao, who then introduced him to Onouchi (who helped prepare the la! NEU? gig recording for release), and so on.  Having acquired a new group, as well as briefly retaining Andreas and Viktoria from la! NEU?, Dinger held recording sessions in 1999 and 2000, the latter of which were eventually featured on this 2017 release, credited to Pre-Japandorf.

This collection might be only 38 minutes long, but it still fills in an important link in Dinger history.  The sound of these tracks is a loose hybrid of the sound of la! NEU? (there's even a fresh interpretation of Mayday) and pointers towards that of Japandorf on their album.  Although slight on running time, the tracks here are a great insight into the spontaneity of the sessions with this short-lived lineup.  Viktoria Wehrmeister is particularly good fronting the tracks Pure Energy and Talk, and the improvisations in the album's second half are enjoyable too, especially the scalding fuzz guitar that Dinger unleashes at the end of Midsummer.  Thank You All is pretty much the perfect endnote to Dinger's career - gives me a bit of a lump in my throat sometimes.

Japandorf link
Pre-Japandorf link
pw: sgtg