Loved this band for such a long time, followed them through the 4AD years over to Viva’s knife in commercial waters, after which they kind of disappeared after an ill-fitted flirtation with synth pop on their Devils LP — a ‘why?’ moment that belongs in the same basket as SPK’s dreadful Machine Age Voodoo album. Anyways, glad to see 4AD have reached into their extensive archive to bring us a two-album, double twelve-inch box set from Xmal Deutschland’s golden years.
Immediately things kilter out on an abrasive rawness with Fetisch, basks bleak and immediate, a DIY-ed aesthetic in which Manuela Zwingman’s drums pull and push at the dense dissonant squall of guitars. Manuela Rickers‘s treble dry-scorch, clamoured over by the eeriness of Fiona Sangster‘s swirling synth-lines and Anja Huwe’s hypnotic lament. An inky insurrection, the morgue-like monochromes and red ransom-esque typographics hold to completely.
The dark intensity of Anja’s vocals manically masticating those ‘They laugh’ repeats on “Geheimnis”, or stalking the nightmarish trope of “In Der Nacht” — her vaporous ravens wordlessly skull-burrowing to clattering bone spirals. Spiky and defiant, this bites brightly into that early 4AD angst Ivo Watts-Russell continued to foster back then, before the label’s opalescence overtook that post-punk gnarl. The Cocteau Twins‘ Garland debut (a year before) briefly sharing that same needling richness, drawing strong parallels to the astringent harshness of Xmal’s guitar style and the wavering swarm of keys that plough wraith-like through the thicket.
Relentlessly eager, Fetisch is an album that satisfactorily slams, harbours a curious pop moment in “Boomerang”. A scour-scaped seduction that silhouettes sacrificial to the traumatised “Stummes Kind” that explodes in a barbed-wired bouquet of discontent. Fetisch was / is still a startling debut, unapologetic and pointed — a great antidote to the Margaret Thatcher-rite shadow that loomed over the country at the time.
The following album Tocsin polished up the pared-down economy of Fetisch, broadened its expressive spectrum and increased its atmospheric pose. Producer Mick Glossop and engineer Felix Kendall did a great job of shifting the emphasis of Xmal Deutschland’s sound, opening up the symphonic space and so elevating the drama. “Mondlicht”‘s swooping dynamics are captivating, its pulmonary pull mining some grandiose theatrics as those heralding guitars unleash a siren spiral of voice, acidically rupturing, reined back in repeated refrains.
The anthem to bedsit land that is “Tag Für Tag” adds to the album’s strength. Its dirge-daggers speaking volumes, superbly capturing the moulding claustrophobia of those four walls closing in, replete with vocal stutterings and fingerings of melody that cling melancholic — manicured a certain miserableness that twists tighter with every shifting detail, guillotined by the swing of a 40 watt bulb.
Eloquently evilled, I love every brooding detail. The murky throb of intent, those apocalyptic acrobatics — just beautiful… The pigeon-winged hunger of original artwork again visually underpinning the goods so effectively.Instinctive, carnal; this is how albums should be. The tribal assault of “Xmass In Australia”, an unholy sermon in chiming metallics and galloping percussive, trampling across a monstrous garden of withering sonic fruit. Like “Tag Für Tag”, this was another album fav track of mine — a gleefully deranged number, dashing headlong into the twisting chasm of “Derswich”. A mesmerically cycloned beast that’s macabrely intoxicating and divinely driven, finds a despotic Anja hitting some atonal highs right to the albums’ close.
Two great albums finally brought together under blackened hands gripping different grave goods, a 4AD retrospective sonically ending on the Incubus Succubus II and Qual twelve-inchers on the third disc. A concise conclusion that finds Ivo and producer John Fryer pushing out extra details from the Zickzack original of Incubus Succubus II, dicing with the dynamics to great effect. Particularly like those demonic screeches that flank Anya’s vocals.
Great to see these albums back in circulation. Can’t recommend them enough.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
