surprising arrival: wunderbar

(we have ways of making you talk)

Every now and then a record shows up on the site with little warning, and gets lost in the onslaught of bigger titles with more cache or cred. Do not let Reichmann’s Wunderbar be that record — especially if you have a soft spot for the B-Side of David Bowie’s Low or moodier Kraftwerk or any of Brian Eno’s ambient/electronic works.

Sonically, this record is a marvel. It came out in 1978, so you can imagine what it might sound like: weird, wispy electronics, very “cold” and “Germanic,” Reichmann occasionally augmenting his icicle-like synths with hummed vocal melodies. There’s a genuinely creepy vibe to this record: the synthesizers sound like lost, lonely ghosts, and the whole thing seems set in some weird, dead futureworld, one where everything is made of metal, it’s always nighttime, and the roads are full of flat, gleaming cars that whizz by quietly, purposefully. Imagine the cities that dotted the movie TRON and you’re getting close.

Like all great lost records, this one has a backstory: Reichmann was a member of Spirits of Sound Group with Neu!’s Michael Rother and Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flühr (which explains a bit why his album recalls the work of both). Wunderbar was set to be his official solo entre into the burgeoning electronic music scene, but his career was cut short when he was tragically stabbed to death two weeks before the album’s release.

I can’t recommend this record enough. It’s not really an “electronic” record — it’s more new wave. It’s melodic — minor-key melodic — and has a strange, unsettling quality that’s hard to shake. Take a spin through the samples and see what you think.

You can read a bit more about it here. Highly recommended!